


Stranger Things 4

by welcometotheupsidedown



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Canon until Season 4 comes out, Hopper's not dead, continuation of season 3, fight me, then it'll be an AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-18
Updated: 2019-08-24
Packaged: 2020-07-07 23:50:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 8
Words: 21,653
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19860079
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/welcometotheupsidedown/pseuds/welcometotheupsidedown
Summary: The Byers' have moved on, taking El with them, whose powers are still not back. When Mike and Nancy come to visit for a week before the end of summer, things become even more strange... But things are not all well in Hawkins either, as the return of a familiar face sparks panic in those who were left behind. Joyce might be in denial, but the kids definitely aren't, and are ready to take on whatever may come next.Otherwise known as... my version of season 4 that will definitely NOT be canon when the actual thing comes out.





	1. The Return

**Author's Note:**

> Hey guys! So, just checking, how are you feeling after season 3? Okay? Still breathing? In shock? I've been thinking about this fanfic from the second I finished ST3, and I'm very excited for you guys to read it!
> 
> This is going to read exactly like an episode of Stranger Things, so we will be jumping back and forth through the storylines. 
> 
> Enjoy!

Kamchatka, Russia   
August 6th 1986

A man walks through a row of cells, eager to get his work done. Today should be the day, he thinks. The day the American will finally become useful. 

He finally reaches the door to the American, unlocks it and opens the door, revealing the shadow of a man. He has a beard, a familiar figure, and is sunken into himself on the floor. 

........

Several stories below, a group of men stand around a machine. A beam of light leads to an opening in the wall. 

A new gate. 

........

Auburn, Maine   
August 6th, 1986

Eleven woke up with a start, sitting straight up and breathing heavily. 

She had been having this vague dream for a while now. It was always the same. A bright light, unfamiliar men’s faces, and the shadow of a man she couldn’t see. 

It was always the same, and left her nervous and afraid. 

A light snore beside her pulled her away from her confusion. 

“Mike,” she whispered. “Mike!”

“Wha-?” Mike mumbled, lifting his head. 

“Come on, you have to get out of my bed before Joyce checks on us,” El told him, pushing him back towards his sleeping bag on the floor. 

It had been a compromise. El didn’t understand why Joyce didn’t want them to sleep in the same bed. She knew it was something to do with boys and girls, but it still confused her. They had settled on allowing him to sleep on the floor with the door open. 3 inches. Joyce had said that it was a boundary, a word which El hadn’t yet had time to look up. 

Mike groaned as he moved down onto the floor. He was snoring again before his head even hit the pillow. 

El looked at the clock. It was 5:49 am. 

She laid back down for a few moments before deciding that she wasn’t going to be able to get back to sleep. 

El went to the kitchen, and began to make coffee. It was a habit she had started after Hopper’s death, it reminded her of him. A comforting smell. 

“Couldn’t sleep?” a voice behind her said. 

She turned to see Joyce leaning on the doorway. 

“I had that weird dream again,” El told her. 

Joyce walked over, pulling out ingredients for breakfast. 

“Do you think it could mean something?” El asked her. 

“What? Like a vision?” 

“Yeah, I mean, it feels... important,” El said, sipping on her coffee. 

“But you haven’t had any powers for over a year,” Joyce started cooking bacon. 

“I know, but—“

“El, I think you should stop worrying so much and enjoy this week with Mike because you won’t be able to see him until maybe thanksgiving. There’s nothing to worry about. Okay?”

“Okay...”

........

“Dustin, do you copy?”

“Dustin! Do. You. Copy?” 

“Dustin!”

Dustin rolled over forgetting where he was, reaching for his walkie, only to realize that the voice wasn’t coming from his walkie. It was coming from his Cerebro. 

He sat up, rubbing his eyes and pressed the button to answer. 

“Yes, I copy. Sorry I fell asleep calling Suzie last night,” he said. 

“Aw did you sing her the song?” Lucas teased. “Turn around, look at what you see——“

“Please stop, okay? It’s getting old,” Dustin complained. 

“Oh no, Dustybun!” Max’s voice chimed in, “I don’t think it’s getting old at all!”

“Enough, guys. If you don’t stop, I’m gonna turn it off. What did you want?” 

“We wanted to go to the arcade. You in?” Lucas asked. 

“Meet you there in 15?” 

“See you then.”

........

“So things still been quiet back in Hawkins?” Jonathan asked. 

“Yeah, not much has happened since you left. Nobody’s been going missing or getting lost in other dimensions,” Nancy said half-joking, half-serious. 

They were in Jonathan’s bedroom, getting ready to go eat breakfast. 

“I just—“ Nancy began, but hesitated. “I just feel like we’re missing something. I mean, the gate is closed. El is safe, but her powers still haven’t come back. Everything’s just too perfect... like it’s tied up in a neat little bow.”

“Have you ever maybe stopped to think, that maybe, possibly... it’s over. Like, we get to be normal people again,” Jonathan suggested. 

“Is it ever, though? Even if nothing ever happens...”

“You’re still paranoid. But whatever happens, if anything, we will stick together. All of us. Okay?” Jonathan told her. 

“Yeah, yeah, you’re right.”

“Let’s go get breakfast.”

........

Steve was stacking movies for the fourth time today, when he heard a familiar voice enter through the back door. 

“Hey, dingus, save anything for me to do or are you being a gentleman again?” Robin asked as she situated herself at the counter. 

“Are you kidding? I left you that huge pile of movies that some kid knocked over earlier,” Steve pointed at a tipped over shelf. 

“Well thank you for that, dingus,” Robin went over to the shelf and began picking up the movies. “Will we be seeing your children today?”

“Probably.. it’s like if they don’t see me for too long, they burst an aneurysm,” Steve joked. 

Then a bell above the door rang, and Steve looked up to see Dustin’s smiling face. “Speak of the devil...” he mumbled. 

“Steve! We were heading to the arcade, but wanted to stop in and see if you were able to score us a couple more...” Dustin lowered his voice, “R rated movies.”

Steve rolled his eyes, but motioned for him to follow. He took them back to a storage closet, where he hid a few movies for the kids now and then. 

“The Return of the Living Dead, Nightmare on Elm Street, and The Breakfast Club. Awesome! Thanks Steve!”

“Yeah, yeah, just don’t let Keith catch you with those,” Steve told Dustin as he threw the movies into his backpack. 

Dustin ran off to the arcade, leaving Steve and Robin to work. 

........

“It felt so real, like, I was actually there... and it looked... it looked like the void...” El spoke softly, her bedroom door firmly shut as she told Mike and Will about her dream. 

“And you’ve had this dream before?” Mike asked. 

“Yes. Always the same. Joyce thinks it’s just a dream, but... I’m not so sure...” 

“El,” Will began, “when was the last time you actively tried to use your powers?”

El thought for a moment before answering, “A while, maybe a month... I haven’t been able to do anything.”

“Well...” Will thought, “what if we tried stuff to make your powers come back?”

“Like the sensory deprivation tank!” Mike suggested excitedly. 

“Do you think it’d actually work?” El asked them. 

“We won’t know unless we try...” Will said. 

“Okay,” El agreed. 

“Okay, we need to go buy some supplies... I definitely don’t know where that kiddie pool ended up,” Will said as he left the room. 

El turned to Mike, who was sitting beside her on the bed. “What if they never come back? What if I’m stupid for even getting my hopes up?”

“El, you are not stupid. It doesn’t matter if you have powers. You’re amazing either way. I love you either way,” Mike said, grabbing her hand. 

El smiled at him. “I love you too,” she said. 

She leaned up and kissed him, but before their kissing could get very far, Will walked back in. 

“Oh god, you guys are STILL super gross. Come on, the store’s only a couple streets away.”

........

The lab had been closed for nearly two years now, so getting back in had been easy. And it was clear that it had been done before, if the shattered windows were any indication. 

A man stepped through the threshold of building, taking in the abandoned surroundings. There was a lot of dust, a few odds and ends left to never be used again, and there were several spots where dried blood could still be seen. 

The man walked through the halls, looking for anything that could be of use to him. A few moments later, he was standing in front of a cemented-over wall. The gate.... or what was left of it. Completely sealed. 

That meant she had been here. 

At least once since that night. 

The night he “died”. 

Or so everyone thought. 

Martin Brenner turned back around. What he was looking for was not here... but she couldn’t hide forever. 

........

“Go! Go! Go! NO!!” Dustin yelled as his game of Dig Dug ended just short of beating Max’s high score.

“Face it, Dustybun. I am the queen of Dig Dug and you will never be able to beat my scores,” she boasted from beside him. 

Dustin whined for a moment. “Well, I’m out of quarters.”

“Me too, let’s go,” Lucas said, grabbing Max’s hand. 

The three walked outside to their bikes, removing them from their racks.

A loud screeching sound caught Dustin’s attention, as he got on his bike. He turned his head to look and what he saw caused his blood to run cold.

“Guys…” he said to the get the others’ attention. “Is that a…?”

“Hawkins Power and Light,” Lucas read off the white van as it passed. 

Dustin and Lucas shared panicked looks, before jumping on their bikes and taking off towards the same direction the van had gone.

Max shouted in confusion, “Guys! What’s going on?!” When she didn’t receive an answer, she mounted her bike and began to pedal quickly to keep up with them.

They followed the van out to Maple Avenue, where it stopped in the Wheelers’ driveway.

“Over here,” Lucas directed them towards his own house, which had a pretty good view of Mike’s. They stashed their bikes in the grass and hid behind the bushes in the front yard to get a clearer view. 

A man with white hair stepped out of the van, causing Dustin to swear and Lucas’ eyes to widen. Because, after all this time, the bad man, Papa was still very much alive… and still looking for Eleven. 

They listened in fear as Dr. Brenner spoke with Karen Wheeler. They just hoped that she wouldn’t give away Mike’s location. 

“And you’re sure your son hasn’t heard from her?” Brenner asked.

“Well, it’s so hard to keep track of what he gets up to these days. He has so many friends. In fact, he’s off visiting a couple of friends in Maine right now,” Karen laughed. 

“Maine… where in Maine?” Brenner pried.

“Hm… I can’t quite remember. I can call and find out if you like…” 

“No, that won’t be necessary. Thank you for your help,” Brenner turned and got back into the van.

Lucas and Dustin waited, holding their breath until the van was gone, before thoroughly freaking out. 

“This is bad. This is really bad.”

“You don’t know that. She didn’t tell him the name of the town they’re in.”

“Maine isn’t that big of a state. He’ll probably search for them in a phone book or something and be able to find them!”

“Hey!” Max yelled, interrupting the two boys. “Would someone explain to me who that was and why we’re so paranoid about it!”

“That was El’s papa,” Lucas told her. “The bad man I told you about. He’s looking for El.”

“He can’t find her though, right? I mean, Lucas is right… he doesn’t know the exact town…” Max said, but she still looked nervous, like she didn’t fully believe that El was safe.

“We have to tell Steve. He’s the only one in Hawkins that can help us right now,” Dustin replied. “We have to make sure Brenner doesn’t find El.”

……..

Nancy perched herself on the counter of the little fishing shop that Jonathan worked at, swinging her legs and talking to him whenever there were no customers… which was pretty much most of the time.

“Sorry I couldn’t get off of work. It’s not exactly romantic to sit around in a fishing shop all day, while sweaty men come in to talk to us,” Jonathan apologized.

“It’s okay, I know you need the money… besides, we’ll have plenty of time at college to go on dates and do normal couple things,” Nancy smiled at him. In just a few short weeks they were headed for New York City. Jonathan at NYU and Nancy at Columbia. 

Jonathan smiled. 

“Can I ask you something?” Nancy suddenly said.

“Sure… what?” 

“I know you told me to stop being so paranoid all the time and to drop it… but… haven’t you ever just had this gut feeling that told you that you were right, even when you had no proof or anything to show for it?” Nancy asked.

“I guess… but I usually am more guarded when it comes to gut feelings… For instance, with Will I denied that he was still alive even though my mom kept telling me he was.”

“Well, my gut feeling is telling me that something is off… I can’t explain it.. it’s just like… I look at the way things ended and it feels like it could be over, but I just keep thinking…”

“Thinking what?” Jonathan asked. 

“I keep thinking about the Russians. If they knew how to open a gate here, why couldn’t they do the same thing somewhere else? If they’ve done it once, they could do it again… but this time, not in Hawkins.” Nancy looked up at Jonathan, hoping for some guidance. 

“I mean, as much as I hope that’s not true. It does make sense,” Jonathan admitted. “Maybe we could do some research of our own. Just to see if any gates have been opened up anywhere else.”

“Is there a library nearby?” Nancy asked. 

……..

Will, Mike, and Eleven returned to the Byers’ house with a pair of goggles, duct tape, thermometer, and as much salt as they could afford.

Mike turned the water on in the bathtub, and began to test the temperature to get it to the exact amount of warmth. Will was in the kitchen assembling the makeshift blindfold out of the goggles and duct tape, while El sat on the floor of the bathroom watching Mike. She was nervously fidgeting with her bracelet.

“Hey,” Mike said, sensing his girlfriend’s nervousness. “It’s gonna be okay. I know the bath makes you nervous, but I’ll be here the whole time. The whole time.”

“Promise?” El asked, turning her brown eyes on him.

“Promise,” Mike said lightly touching her cheek with his hand. 

El gave a small smile and nodded, trying to calm herself.

Will walked in then, handing El her goggles. All three teens began pouring bags of salt into the bathtub until the egg from the fridge was floating perfectly in it.

Mike turned to El and grabbed her hand. “You ready?”

El took a deep breath before meeting his eyes and nodded. She stood up, stepped into the bath and lied down. 

At first, there was nothing but the sound of silence as El laid in the warm salt water. Mike and Will waited with baited breath, hoping that something, anything would happen.

“It’s been almost twenty minutes already,” Mike whispered. “Should she get out?”

“I don’t know,” Will shrugged, looking at El, who hadn’t moved. 

……..

“I just don’t understand why we can’t just call El and tell her what’s going on,” Max said as she put her bike in the rack.

“Because, Max, they could be listening,” Dustin told her. 

Max, Dustin, and Lucas walked into the movie store, desperate to find Steve. 

“Steve!” Dustin shouted. 

Steve and Robin were both at the counter, looking bored, as it was a fairly slow day. 

“What’s going on?” Steve asked, seeing the kids’ nervous eyes. 

“We’ve got a code red. El’s papa is back, and he knows that Mike went to visit someone in Maine. He’s going to find her if we don’t stop him!”

“Whoa, whoa, slow down!” Steve told them. “Where is he at?”

The kids didn’t know, but agreed that they should find out right now. Steve and Robin gave Keith an excuse as to why they had to leave right this second, and met the kids outside. They all piled into Steve’s car and set off on a mission to find Dr. Brenner. 

……..

Nancy ran into the library with Jonathan trying to keep up. She quickly found newspaper records from all over the country and began to leaf through them.

Jonathan joined her search. “What exactly are we looking for?”

“Anything that has to do with MKUltra or mind control experiments, maybe even missing kids?” Nancy told him, not looking up from the newspapers.

They searched for what felt like forever, and were able to find a few leads. 

“Okay, we have seven different locations where MKUltra was running experiments...” Nancy said, reading through the newspapers. “Four of them have been completely shut down by the government, including Hawkins Lab, and the other three are still in use.”

“Well, where are they?” Jonathan asked. 

“Um... Ohio, New York, and...” Nancy looked at the paper nervously before looking up at Jonathan, “....here.”

Jonathan stared back at her in shock. 

........

El had been in the bath for an hour. 

“Mom will be coming home from work soon... if she sees this, she’ll be mad,” Will whispered. 

Mike nodded, and squeezed El’s hand that he had been holding. 

“El?” 

El didn’t move, and Mike began to panic. 

“El?!” he said, sitting up and lightly touching her face to get her attention. 

It was then that the lights went out, making Mike and Will both freeze in anticipation. 

A few moments pass by in silence. But then, El was sitting up out of breath reaching for Mike, who hugged her as she caught her breath. 

“El, what happened?” he asked her. 

“I saw it again. My dream. But it was brighter this time. I think it’s real. I think it’s happening... but I couldn’t see anything new,” El said. 

“El...” Mike began, “your nose.” 

A small trail of blood was falling from her nostril. El wiped it onto her hand and looked up at Mike, who was smiling at her. 

“Your powers are coming back,” Mike said. 

Will grinned too, making El feel excited. Maybe they were finally coming back. 

........

“What is he doing? What is he doing?” Dustin kept asking. 

“I don’t know! Shut up!” Steve snapped, as he looked through the binoculars. 

They were parked across the street from the only hotel in Hawkins, where Dr. Brenner was talking to someone they couldn’t recognize in the parking lot. They had been there for a long time and it was starting to get dark.

“I just wanna see!” Dustin whined from the backseat of Steve’s car. 

“No! I told you, I’m in charge!” 

“Both of you shut up!” Robin shouted, grabbing the binoculars out of Steve’s hands and looking through them. 

“He’s getting back into that van,” she told them. 

“We have to follow him,” Lucas said. 

“Guys, we have to work tomorrow, and none of your parents know where you are,” Steve told them. 

“So?” Max challenged. “It’s not like we all haven’t been MIA before, our parents won’t get worried.”

“Okay, okay, fine,” Steve conceded as he started the car back up. 

........

Joyce walked through the hallway, checking up on the kids before heading off to bed. Jonathan and Nancy were asleep on top of the covers of his bed, Will was cuddled up in his blanket in his own room. Joyce walked to Eleven’s door, seeing that it was 3 inches open as promised, but Mike was in her bed with her. Joyce didn’t have the heart to wake them up and tell them to move. She knew they were good kids.

She finally made it to her own bedroom, sitting on the bed and reaching into her nightstand for her cigarettes. Just like every night before, she caught a glimpse of Hopper’s badge sitting beside the carton. She felt her eyes fill with tears as she let herself think about him. They had been so close. So close to getting to be together. 

She shut the stand and laid down in her bed, facing the window as she watched the rain begin to spray the glass. 

……..

Thousands of miles away and several miles beneath Kamchatka, Russia, the soldier we saw earlier is walking his captive to an interrogation room, where the captive is sat down, handcuffed to his chair, and given a single cigarette. 

The American takes the cigarette, puffs on it, and coughs. 

“So… are we ready to talk today?” the soldier asks in a thick Russian accent.

Hopper takes another puff of his cigarette and smiles weakly. “No,” he says.


	2. The Visions

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Eleven's powers are slowly coming back in the form of visions. Nancy and Jonathan make a terrible discovery. Steve, Robin, and the kids face a huge problem. Joyce just wants to move on.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey there! This took me longer than I hoped, but I'm feeling really motivated about this fic now, so I'm hoping to get the next chapter out quicker!
> 
> Enjoy!
> 
> FYI I didn't proofread, so sorry if there are mistakes.

Flashback to July 4, 1985

Hopper looks into Joyce’s tear-filled eyes, realizing that there is no way he can get back to safety before this machine explodes. He tries to keep his expression encouraging, telling her to go ahead. He’ll be okay. Tears fill his own eyes as she puts her head down against the controls, not able to look. In this moment, Hopper has a sudden revelation. He quickly turns, looking towards the gate when his eye catches on a ladder leading down. He runs, throwing himself down the ladder as quickly as possible as he hears the machine begin to falter. 

The explosion is loud. And he feels a tinge of pain as he quickly throws himself through a random door at the end of the ladder, slamming the door. He looks down at his ankle, where the explosion had burnt him, but otherwise he is okay. He breathes a sigh of relief and almost laughs. 

Hopper sets off down a hallway, hoping to at least find another way out. But his victory is short lived, as he feels a sharp pain in his neck. 

He turns around to see a Russian soldier holding a syringe that he now realizes was what he had just felt. His vision becomes blurry, but before he passes out, he thinks he can make out a few other figures in Russian uniforms coming in the distance. This is it, he thinks. Almost made it. 

……..

“Are you sure about this?” Jonathan asked. He and Nancy were sitting by the entrance to the Auburn Lab in Jonathan’s car.

“Not really… but we’re here. We have to try,” Nancy said, fidgeting with her pen and notepad.

“Okay, just… remember…” Jonathan began.

“If anyone asks, we are journalists and we were invited to write a story about what the lab is doing to improve the community,” Nancy finished. 

“Right,” Jonathan said, pulling the car forward to a large gated entrance, where a guard was sitting at the controls.

Jonathan rolled down his window. 

“How can I help you?” the guard asked.

“We are journalists. We’ve been asked to come do a story on the lab,” Nancy said.

“We’re not scheduled to do any interviews today. I would have been notified.”

Noticing the skepticism in the guard’s eyes, Jonathan quickly changed the plan. “Sir, we actually aren’t journalists, but we only said that to be discreet. You see, we are from Hawkins Lab in Indiana, and we used to work for Dr. Brenner. We’re here to check on things and report back. We thought we should keep a low profile.”

The guard considered them for a minute before answering, “Of course, you’ll want to park at the back entrance.” 

The gate opened in front of them and Jonathan gave the guard a smile and nod, driving off. 

“That was close,” Nancy said breathlessly. 

“Yeah,” Jonathan smiled. 

........

In the dining room, El stared at the Coke can in front of her for a long time before finally giving up. There had been no sign of the physical part of her powers. 

“Maybe they just have to come back slowly, like one little bit of your powers at a time,” Mike said, sitting in front of her. 

“Yeah,” Will agreed. “It took you an hour to see that tiny little vision yesterday. I’m sure that once your ability to go into the void comes back, you’re telekinesis will start coming back too.”

“You probably just need to keep practicing,” Mike suggested. 

El nodded. “I think I should take a break, wanna get lunch?” 

The boys agreed and they went through Joyce’s fridge. Mike and Will both decided on sandwiches, while El opted for some Eggos. 

“Wanna try the radio again?” Will asked. 

“Yes,” El said, eating the last bit of her Eggo. 

Five minutes later, they were sitting in El’s room again. El was blindfolded and the static was blaring from her pink radio. 

A few minutes went by in white noise before anything happened. 

“Feel anything?” Mike asked.

“Quiet... I’m almost there...” El said. 

........

El felt the familiar feel of wet floor as she slipped into the void. 

She walked forward on instinct, eventually coming up on a large machine. The machine was sending a massive blue laser into a gaping red hole in the wall. 

El felt a horrible sense of déjà vu looking at the it. She didn’t know what the machine was, but that red hole in the wall...

She turned to look at the surroundings more, seeing men in green uniforms. 

The men were speaking a language she didn’t understand, but found familiar as her mind flashed back to her time in the lab. 

Then one of the men said something she did understand. 

“We’re going to have to kill the American.”

........

El ripped the blindfold from her face and felt the familiar trickle of blood fall from her nose. 

........

“Where are we?” Lucas asked from the back seat of Steve’s car, rubbing his eyes. The kids had fallen asleep at some point during the night, Dustin’s snores still echoed through the car. 

“Ohio. Dr. What’s his face hasn’t taken a single pitstop, so he should be stopping for gas soon,” Steve said from the driver’s seat. Robin was also asleep in the passenger side. “What’s the plan anyways? We’re just gonna follow this guy until… what happens?”

“He could be going after El, we have to find a way to let her know,” Lucas answered with determination. 

“Could you guys talk any louder,” Dustin complained as he woke up. Max began to rub her eyes as she awoke as well.

“Jeez, Dustin, your breath is rancid,” Lucas complained.

“Oh yeah, ‘cuz you’re one to talk!”

“Really Dustin, you—“

“Oh my god can you both just shut up!” Max said. “You’re gonna wake up Robin.”

“Don’t worry, she can sleep through just about anything,” Steve told them. 

“Oh and how would you know that Steeevvvee?” Dustin taunted him, wiggling his eyebrows at him. 

“Jesus, Henderson, nothing like that. We’re friends, okay? I know things about her, she knows things about me. That’s how the whole friendship thing works… and she also falls asleep on the counter at work all the time, so…” Steve answered. 

“We’re far enough away from Hawkins now, could we try to call El?” Max suggested. 

“Brenner’s pulling into that gas station,” Steve interrupted. “We’ll go to the next one and wait, you’ll have time to try and call then.”

……..

Flashback to 1985

Hopper woke up in a plane. He felt the jolt of minor turbulence, but wasn’t able to take in very much. He strapped into his seat with multiple restraints. He swore to himself, because if he wasn’t dead and the Russians had him, he would really rather be dead.

His row of seats had been blocked off by a curtain, preventing him to see anything else. He could hear the distant sounds of men talking several rows away from him. 

Hopper turned his head to look out the window. They were over the ocean with no land in sight. He began to think about everything he’d been through over the last few days. He thought about the gate and the man he had almost killed. He thought about Alexei, who even though he was irritated by him, he kinda liked. He thought about Joyce, how they had been so close to finally being together. And finally, he thought about El. He hoped that she was safe and that Joyce was taking care of her. And then he fell back asleep.

……..

Jonathan and Nancy got out of the car, staring nervously at the entrance of the lab. 

“Ready?” Jonathan asked.

“Ready,” Nancy nodded. 

They walked through the doors, taking in the surroundings as much as possible. There wasn’t much security, only a woman at a desk, who looked them over. 

“Lab ID?” the woman asked.

“Um, we’re from Hawkins. We’re supposed to check on, um, how things are going…” Nancy said. 

“Just one moment, please.” The woman went into a back room, opening the door with a keycard. She returned one minute later with a man in a lab coat. “This is Dr. Wells, he’ll be showing you around.”

“Thank you,” Nancy said, shaking the man’s hand. 

“I hope your trip wasn’t too long,” Dr. Wells walked them down a long hallway.

“Not too bad,” Jonathan answered as casually as he could. 

They walked into an elevator, and the doctor pressed a button with a strange symbol on it. Nancy was certain that they were going exactly where they needed to be.

……..

“Who could be the American?” Mike asked El. She had just recounted everything she saw in the void. 

“It would have to be someone who could tell them about the gate. They aren’t going to keep someone who isn’t valuable to them,” Will said.

“Exactly!” Mike exclaimed. “… what if it’s someone who used to work for the lab?”

“I don’t know… they’re all hiding. The Russians would have a hard time finding them,” El told them. 

“Are you sure what you saw was a gate?” Will asked.

“Yes. It looks just like the first one, but they’re using a machine to open it. They don’t know anything about people like me, or they’d have someone like me there,” El answered.

Mike swore. “What if they find out about you? What if they come looking for you?”

“Mike, I will be okay. I’m far away from Hawkins. No one here knows me. I’m safe,” El reassured him, laying a hand on top of his own.

“I still think we should tell your mom,” Mike said, looking at Will.

“No way! She’ll be mad at us for trying to use Eleven’s powers in the first place. If she finds out we think that the Russians are still trying to get into the upside down, she’ll be furious.”

“Yeah,” Joyce said from the doorway. “She will be.”

“Mom, we… didn’t hear you come home,” Will stuttered. 

“I’ve told you guys a million times that it’s over. You don’t need to worry anymore and I told you not to drain yourself trying to use your powers. And Mike, I know I’m not your mother, but while you’re staying in my house, I’m in charge of you. And I think all of you should drop it right now. Got it?” Joyce stared down all three of the young teenagers, as they looked back at her with fear and surprise. 

They all three nodded right away and Joyce left the room.

Suddenly, the baby blue phone on El’s nightstand began to ring. She reached over and picked it up, “Hello?”

“El! Thank god! Listen, Brenner is back,” Dustin said.

“What?” El yelled. Mike and Will looked at her nervously.

“I can’t talk long, but we’ve been tracking him all night and it seems like he’s headed to Maine. I think he knows where you are.”

“Dustin, are you serious? Where are you?” 

“Ohio. Still pretty far away, but I’d say you have a day or two at most before you need to be out of Maine. Oh, and El? Be careful okay?”

“Dustin, wait!” El shouted, as she heard him hang up. 

……..

“Did she answer?” Max asked when Dustin got back into the car.

“Yes, she knows,” Dustin answered, sighing in relief. 

“Does that mean we can go home now?” Robin asked.

“Well, if she knows… then there’s no reason for us to follow him, right?” Max asked. 

“Right. Take us home, Steve,” Dustin said. 

Steve sighed, ready to finally go home and get to bed. He turned the ignition, only for the engine to make a clicking noise. He tried again and again. 

“What’s wrong? Why won’t it start?” Robin asked. 

“I don’t know, I’m going to pop the hood,” Steve said, getting out and going to the front of the car. He came back a few minutes later. “The engine is dead. It doesn’t make any sense, the engine isn’t old and nothing was left on while we stopped… someone had to have messed with it while were in the gas station.”

The five gave each other nervous looks. 

“I’ll see if the gas station has jumper cables or something,” Robin said, getting out of the car. It was beginning to rain, so she put the hood of her jacket up over her head. 

She walked through the door and found the man at the register. 

“Do you have any jumper cables? Our car won’t start,” Robin asked the man. 

“Sorry, no. I can call someone for you, if you like,” the man replied.

“Thank you, that would be great,” Robin turned to go back out the door. She walked up to the car only to see that the others weren’t there anymore. She turned around, looking for them somewhere else, but then her vision went dark as a bag was thrown over her head. 

……..

The elevator carrying Nancy and Jonathan opened into a long hallway, very reminiscent of Hawkins Lab. They followed Dr. Wells down the hall, eventually reaching a large door. The doctor put his keycard into the slot and the door unlocked, letting them in. Inside, they had reached a control center, but Nancy could barely see the controls because she was staring at the large red whole in the wall behind the glass. 

“As you can see, we’ve made excellent progress. The doorway is now open, once again, and we are working to possibly expand it. I’m sure it won’t be long now that we have cleared all the other roadblocks,” the doctor moved forward, pointing to various screens that showed different parts of the upside down. 

“Excellent work, Dr.” Jonathan said, improvising. “Could you give us a timetable for what’s to come?”

“Well, of course you know that it’s subject to change as problems could arise, but I’d say we’ll be ready in a month or so.”

“Great, we’ll report back to our superiors. Thank you for meeting with us,” Nancy said, eyes never leaving the gate. 

“Can I ask how you opened it?” Jonathan asked, hoping the question wouldn’t give them away.

“Well, without test subjects, we had to come up with other means. It was a combination of chemicals, water to cool it, and our electromagnetic machine,” the doctor gestured to said machine, which looked like a smaller version of the Russian’s machine.

Five minutes later, Jonathan and Nancy were back out of the lab, sitting in his car. 

“Oh my god,” Nancy whispered. “What are we going to do?”

“We have to close it, someway, somehow.”

……..

Later that night, everyone in the Byers’ home was asleep in their beds, when suddenly El shot up out of her bed screaming. 

Mike was awake immediately, holding onto her as she panicked. “El? What’s wrong?” he tried asking her, but she didn’t answer and was shaking. 

Joyce came running into the room, followed by Will, Jonathan, and Nancy, all looking concerned. 

Joyce grabbed El by the shoulders, forcing her to look at her. “El, honey, what is it? What’s going on?”

“Hopper. He’s—he’s alive. But they have him, and they’re going to hurt him,” El finally said.

“Who? Who has him?” Joyce didn’t have any choice other than to believe what the kids had told her now. Especially with the bloody nose of El’s powers as evidence. 

“The Russians, he’s there.”

Joyce ran back into her bedroom and grabbed the phone. 

She dialed a number and waited as she listened to it ring. "Come on, come on," she whispered to herself.

"Hello?" a voice said.

"Murray, we have a problem."


	3. The First Close

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Joyce and Murray make plans. Steve, Robin, and the kids are in danger. And Nancy, Jonathan, Will, El, and Mike work together.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WOW! Honestly I don't know how I managed to get this chapter out so fast, like ??? 3 days ??? unheard of. Anyways, this one has been my favorite so far to write, so please let me know what you think in the comments!!

Robin woke up feeling like she had been hit by a bus. She looked around the room, seeing Steve, Lucas, Max, and Dustin laying on the floor beside her. They were all handcuffed, including herself. Steve had bruises on his face.

“Steve,” she whispered, shaking him with her shoulder. “Steve, wake up.”

Steve made a grumbling noise as he slowly opened his eyes. “Wha.. where are we?” he mumbled.

“That’s what I’m trying to figure out, dingus,” Robin said. 

“Well, well, well… look who’s awake,” Dr. Brenner spoke as he walked through the door. 

“Let us go,” Robin demanded. 

Brenner laughed. “Did you really think it was a good idea to follow me here? To Ohio of all places? I know that you all have protected Eleven, keeping her hidden. But even after all this time, I have been watching and waiting for the right moment. I rebuilt my plans, set them in motion, and now? Well, I’m going to get Eleven back. Plain and simple. And five teenagers are not about to stop me.”

“You won’t find her. She’s safe,” Steve told him.

“For now…” Brenner said. “Have a nice day.” He left the room, leaving Robin and Steve speechless. 

……..

The Byers house was particularly tension-filled during breakfast as they all sat around the table eating eggs and bacon. 

Will was the first to break the silence.

“Mom, what are you going to do?”

“I called Murray last night. He’s coming as fast as he can get here. Then we’re going to make a plan. Right now, I’m going to work,” Joyce answered, standing and grabbing her purse. She left the room before anyone could ask anything else. 

“At least she believes us now,” Mike said. 

“Not that saving Hopper isn’t important, but we have other problems to deal with,” Nancy interrupted. The three kids looked at her with a confused expression. 

“Like what?” Mike asked.

“There are more labs. We found seven of them, but only three are still in operation. One in Ohio, one in New York, and one here. Jonathan and I were able to take a look around, and… it’s bad.”

“There’s another gate opened. They don’t have anyone like El to open it, so they’ve tried other stuff. The gate is barely there, it’s small, but it’s open,” Jonathan said.

“We were hoping to infiltrate the lab and close it. Then, we have to go to the other labs, because if there is one open here, they probably have other gates open at other labs too,” Nancy added.

“How are we supposed to get in? How are we going to close it? El can’t do it,” Mike replied. 

“We won’t need her to close it, we can handle that. But… we’ll need her to help navigate,” Nancy said. She turned to look at El directly. “You can find people now, right?”

El nodded.

……..

Murray Bauman had been traveling all night. His call with Joyce last night had proven something he had wondered about himself, but now that he knew it was true, it had him on edge. After getting off the phone, he had immediately went to the airport in Chicago to get on the next flight to Maine. He had to wait four hours before his flight finally left. Luckily, the flight was only two and a half hours. 

Now, Murray was on the highway in a cheap rental driving the rest of the way to Auburn. 

When he finally arrived at the address of the store Joyce worked out, he felt a sense of relief. They could do this. 

He walked through the doors of the little thrift shop, looking around for Joyce. He found her at the register towards the back of the store.

“Murray, thank god!” Joyce said when she saw him. She quickly walked around the counter to hug him.

“What do we know?” Murray asked. They had a lot to prepare, and not much time to do it. 

“Not much… just that Hopper is alive and he’s…” Joyce pulled out a map of Russia, placing it on the counter, “here.”

“Kamchatka?” Murray read. 

“That’s where El pointed to. She said they have another gate open there. They’ve probably been using him for information… Murray, how are we going to get in?”

Murray put his hand on his forehead nervously. “Well… we have experience in that area. But we’re one man short.”

“Did you have someone in mind?” Joyce asked. 

“A buddy of mine, he’s actually the one who taught me Russian. I think he could help us… Can I use the phone?”

……..

Max, Lucas, Dustin, Robin, and Steve had spent the whole day on the cold, hard floor, chained together, when suddenly a man walked in, wearing a belt with a gun in the holster.

“Who wants to go first?” 

“Go first… for what?” Steve asked.

The man simply smiled, then took a look at each of them. “I think I’ll start with this one, if there are no volunteers?” he said gesturing towards Dustin.

Dustin looked frantically towards his friends, before Steve suddenly shouted, “No! No… I’ll… I’ll go first…”

The man shrugged and walked over to him, removing him from his chains. He led him out of the room and down the hall, where they entered a different room.

“Sit,” the man told him, gesturing to the chair in the middle of the room. Steve complied, sitting down slowly. Then, the man bound his wrists to the armrests of the chair.

The man picked up a clipboard off of the table, and stood in front of Steve. 

“Steve Harrington. Nineteen years old. Works at a video store, is that correct?”

“Yes,” Steve mumbled. 

“What do you know about Eleven?” the man asked. 

Thirty minutes later, the man brought Steve back to the group. He was badly battered, one of his eyes black and bloodshot, his nose and bottom lip bleeding. He threw Steve on the ground and quickly re-chained him. The man then turned to the others and asked, “Who’s next?”

The kids shared panicked expressions. And Robin knew she had to volunteer. “Me. I’ll go,” she said quietly.

……..

“So, here’s the plan,” Nancy said. Jonathan, Nancy, Mike, El, and Will were all sitting in Jonathan’s car parked on an old road that looked deserted. They were hoping that no one would see them there.

“We’ll wait for the majority of the lab workers to leave, going in the middle of the night. We’re going to stick together, El is going to help navigate. Jonathan and I are going to do the heavy lifting, and closing of the gate, but if anything goes wrong… Mike and Will are going to get El out of there.”

“Wait? We’re just supposed to leave you? And how exactly are the three of us supposed to fight against the bad men?” Mike asked in confusion.

“Yes, Mike, you have to leave us. We can take care of ourselves. And it’s more important to me that the three of you are safe. So…” Nancy turned and pulled something out of her bag. “It’s time for you to learn how to use one of these.” Mike looked at what was in her hand, realizing it was a gun.

Five minutes later, Mike and Nancy were out in a clearing near the car. They had set up a few things for targets, and Nancy began to show Mike the different parts of the gun.

“Safety on, safety off. Got it?” she asked him, flipping the switch.

“Yeah, I think so… are you sure I can do this?” Mike asked.

“I was only a few months older than you when I first learned. You’ll be fine, as long as you handle the gun safely,” she told him, handing the gun over. 

Mike held the gun carefully in his hands. 

“Okay, first, turn the safety off…” Nancy said. Mike did as he was told.

“Now, point the gun, concentrate on what you want to shoot at and squeeze the trigger, but be careful. The gun will backfire, so hold it steady.”

Mike nervously raised the gun, trying his best to aim it on the first target, which was a Coke can. He tried to hold onto the gun as confidently as he could and he gently began to squeeze the trigger. 

The gun went off with a loud cracking noise that made his ears ring, but he felt a surge of excitement as the bullet hit the can. 

“See?” Nancy said, smiling at him. “I told you you could do it.”

Mike smiled and raised the gun to fire again.

……..

“How long will we have to wait for your friend?” Joyce asked Murray. They were back at the house, trying to come up with a plan as best they could. 

“Hopefully not too much longer. His flight should be landing soon,” Murray answered. 

“I still think it would be a good idea to bring a fourth person, I mean… when there were only three of us, we lost one,” Joyce said.

“We can’t. Ivan’s plane is small and if we had more, we’d be too conspicuous. And we can’t do any real planning until we know what we’re dealing with. And we won’t know what we’re dealing with until after we get over to Russia… Have you decided what to do about the kids yet?” 

“I’m sending them back to your house. It’s the only place that is safe for them right now. Especially now that that Dr. Brenner is looking for El again,” Joyce told him. 

“They’ll have quite the drive,” Murray said, looking over the map of Russia some more.

“Well, both Nancy and Jonathan have made the drive from Hawkins before, so I’m not too worried,” Joyce began to smoke a cigarette. 

They sat for a moment in silence. Finally Joyce said, “Do you think that we can actually do this?”

Murray sighed and looked up at her. “I don’t know…. Even if we do, is it completely over? Are we done with this mess?”

“When Will first went missing, I was in denial that it was over. I worried about him all the time. I never stopped. After he was possessed by that—by that thing… I was constantly on edge, looking for things out of the ordinary. That probably why I was so fixated on why my magnets weren’t working. But then, after I saw that gate close with my own eyes, I thought… I thought it HAD to be over. I wanted so much to move on. It’s why we moved. It’s why I tried to tell the kids not to meddle with El’s powers. But if they hadn’t… who knows what would’ve happened…”

“You can’t blame yourself, Joyce. You’re human, not perfect. And you were grieving. I can’t promise you that it’ll all be over, but I can promise you we won’t go down without a fight,” Murray said. 

“Thank you.”

……..

The group could hardly stand to hear the screams of Max from down the hall. Steve and Robin had both fallen asleep after being tortured for information, but Dustin and Lucas couldn’t sleep. They had both taken their turns already. Dustin had blood coming out of his ear and Lucas’ lip was swollen. Max was the last one. They wanted to be there for her when she was done. After all, when a party member requires assistance…

Max’s screams suddenly came to an end and the two boys looked at each other. 

“Do you think she’s okay?” Lucas asked worriedly.

“She’s MadMax. She’ll be okay,” Dustin answered, but it looked like he might not believe it. 

A few moments later, the man returned with another man as they lugged Max’s unconscious body into the room. 

Lucas wanted to shout, he wanted to scream, but he knew that if he did that, it would make it much much worse. 

“Here,” the man said as he set a tray of food down on the floor. “Share that with your other friends when they wake up.”

The man left the room, but the boys didn’t feel any better. 

Two hours later, after everyone had eaten something, the man came back to take them to different holding cells. He threw Max and Robin into one together, Dustin and Lucas into one, and Steve into his own. They each had a small ratty bed to sleep on. 

“What’s going to happen to us?” Max asked, lying on the hard mattress.

“I don’t know…” Robin answered. 

……..

“Okay. Ready?” Jonathan asked.

“Ready,” everyone else echoed. 

They drove down the little road that led to the lab, coming up to the guard at the main gate. This time, however, Nancy didn’t wait for anything to be said before getting out of the car and walking directly towards the guard. 

“Hey! What the—?” Nancy pulled out a taser and tased the man in the neck until the man fell unconscious. She quickly pressed the button that opened the gate and got back into the car. 

They drove to the back parking lot where they had been before and were relieved to see only a few other cars. The less company they had, the better. All five of them got out of the car, grabbing their supplies. Nancy handed the taser to Will, who looked back at her in confusion.

“Mike has his weapon, this is yours,” she explained. Will nodded. 

“Okay, El is there anyone at the front desk?” Mike asked her. 

El closed her eyes and concentrated. “No, no one at the desk.”

The group made their way inside quietly. And just as El had said, the desk was unoccupied. Jonathan pulled a keycard out of his pocket to unlock the door. Seeing the confusion on the kids’ faces, he explained, “Pick pocketed it off of one of the doctors jackets we passed when we were here yesterday.”

“Okay… El?” Nancy asked once they were in the hallway. 

“Safe, but someone will be behind the fourth door, so be quiet.”

They continued in this fashion for the next five minutes as they made there way to the gate. They passed only one person, which they were able to easily hide from in a storage closet. Everything went almost too smoothly until they reached the gate.

“Five men. One has a gun. He’s standing the furthest away from the door,” El said. 

Nancy gulped and nodded, raising her own gun as she prepared to turn to door handle. 

The next few seconds were complete chaos.

Nancy opened the door to the five men, one of which charged towards her, but her focus was on the man who was reaching for his firearm. Will quickly acted, putting the taser on the attacker’s neck, effectively stopping the man, who fell to the floor. The man with the gun began to pull it out, but Nancy was too quick and she shot him straight in the chest. He fell to the floor as well, blood leaking out from his shirt. 

The other three men were startled, but did not make any motions to move.

The group all stepped into the room, looking like a force to be reckoned with. Mike raised his own gun at the men threateningly, and said, “Okay, this is how this is gonna go. You are going to stand there against that wall over there and do nothing to stop what we are doing or you’ll end up like that guy over there.” He gestured to the man bleeding on the floor. “Got it?” 

The three men stood against the wall and nodded. Jonathan and Nancy got to work. 

……..

“Okay the kids are gone, we’re ready. How are you doing, Joyce,” Murray asked. 

“I’m okay. Let’s just... get this over with...” she answered. 

They stepped onto the tiny plane that Murray’s friend, Ivan had arrived on not long ago. 

Joyce sat in the seat, buckling up and taking a deep breath. 

“First time flying?” Murray asked. 

Joyce nodded, eyes closed still taking deep breaths. 

“Don’t worry, it feels like you’re riding in a car.”

Joyce couldn’t help but think maybe he was sugarcoating it a little, but she held onto that little bit of hope she had for Hopper. She was coming to get him. 

........

Max woke in a cold sweat, and it was like she had fallen back into an even worse dream than the one she had just had. 

She sat up, looking over at Robin, who was sleeping. The cells were all quiet, so it seemed like everyone was asleep. Max took a moment to look around the cell, when she noticed a hole in the wall in the corner. 

It was small, just big enough to put her hand through. She got down to look through it, and saw that she could see into Dustin and Lucas’s cell. She heard someone in the cell move. 

“Lucas?” she whispered through the hole. 

A few seconds later, Lucas’s face appeared on the other side. 

“Hey, you okay?” he asked her. 

“Yeah, yeah. Just wanted to see your face,” she said. 

She reached her hand through the hole and touched his lip. He flinched. 

“How bad does it hurt?” Max asked. 

“Not bad,” Lucas answered. He reached for her hand, pulling it off his face. He gripped her hand tightly. 

And that’s how they eventually fell asleep. 

........

Nancy and Jonathan quickly went to work on the controls, while Mike stood with his gun pointed at the three doctors. El stood behind him and Will was ready to tase anyone who came near them. 

“I have an idea,” Nancy said. “Wait here.”

Nancy ran through the door that led directly to the gate. She stood right in front of it, and began to dig for something in her bag. 

A second later, she pulled out a bottle of kerosene and a lighter. She opened the bottle and began to pour the kerosene all over the gate. Then, she stepped back and flipped the lighter, throwing it at it. 

The fire spread quickly and Nancy came back into the control center. The gate squealed loudly, causing everyone to cover their ears, except for Mike, who was determined to keep his gun pointed forward. 

“Close it,” Nancy told Jonathan. 

Jonathan flipped a few switches, making the machine throw an unstable laser into the gate. It shook, and began to explode. Everyone hid their faces to the bright light of the machine’s final blow. 

Once it was over, they looked up to see the smallest sliver of light on the wall, but no hole. 

“It’s closed,” El told them. “That’s what it looked like in Hawkins.”

Nancy nodded and turned her focus onto the doctors. 

“We are going to leave now. If you so much as tell anyone who we were, you’ll find that we are capable of just about anything. But...” she continued. “Just to make sure... Will... tase them.”

Will walked forward and tased all three men, who did not resist because of the other weapons currently pointed at them. 

“El?” Jonathan asked. 

“All clear,” she promptly answered. 

They snuck back out into the hall on high alert, not wanting to be caught now. 

They stopped outside of the elevator, El telling them it was safe. 

Once they were at the floor where the exit was, an alarm began to go off. Nancy swore. 

El whispered, “This way,” as she led them down a different hallway. 

They walked for a few minutes before El stopped suddenly. 

“Into here,” she said, pointing to another supply closet. 

They waited quietly as they heard several running footsteps. El felt Mike grab her hand. 

A few moments later, El turned to the others. “We have to run the rest of the way. Follow me.”

They ran as quickly as they could, but El had picked a good route of escape because they only passed one person, who Nancy didn’t hesitate to shoot in the leg. 

They made it out to the car, jumping in as Jonathan revved the engine. They sped away without a problem. 

“Did we just do that?” Will asked. 

“Yeah, we did,” Jonathan answered. They all began to laugh in relief. 

“Where are we going now?” El said. 

“New York.”


	4. The Escape

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The stakes are getting higher as the whole gang prepares for another full out war against the enemies of not only Hawkins, but the world.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hiii I'm back within a decent amount of time I guess! 
> 
> I'm still on the fence about how long this is gonna be. My current guess is somewhere around 7 or 8 chapters?? I doubt it will be more than 9. 
> 
> We're starting to really get into the final plan of things, which is great because the last chapter or so is going to be so fun to write and I can't wait for y'all to read it!
> 
> Anyways, I'll shut up now and let you read!

They had driven for five hours before Jonathan stopped at a motel. According to Nancy, who had been studying the map, they were about an hour away from the New York lab. They couldn’t close the gate during the day, so they decided that they would get some sleep. Nancy and Jonathan decided that they had to go check the lab out beforehand, like they had done with Maine. They needed another quick break. Last night had seemed almost too easy.

They walked into the motel room to find there were two double sized beds. There was a little squabble between Will and Mike over who had to sleep on the floor, until Nancy yelled at them and told them that Mike, El , and Will could all fit in one bed. Nancy and Jonathan fell asleep quickly. Will could tell that Mike and El had both fallen asleep too. He tried not to think about how they were cuddling two inches from him and how he was always third wheeling with these two.

Will hoped that they would make it through the labs without problems. They already had too many things going on in their lives. He hadn’t forgot about Dustin’s phone call. Will drifted off, leaving the room in complete silence, except for the small sounds of everyone breathing. 

……..

Hopper woke up in his cell feeling like garbage. He looked around, trying to tell what time it was, but it didn’t really matter. He slept most of the time anyways. It was easier to forget when you’re asleep, to forget the pain he was in, to forget the people he’d left behind. 

He heard talking nearby, and turned his head towards the door, expecting someone to come through it. He held his breath until they were gone and then sighed in relief. It had been days since they’d let him out, or even came to see him. He wasn’t sure if that was a good sign, but at least he got to stay in bed. 

……..

Max had been sitting in front of the bars of the cell, entertaining herself with the tiniest piece of rusty metal that was coming off of one of the bars. It chipped off and she examined it for a minute. It was sharp and skinny… and perfect for what Max was thinking of. 

She stood up excitedly and went to where the lock was. 

“What are you doing?” Robin asked her. 

Max didn’t answer, instead she looped her hands outside of the bars and reached for the lock. She stuck the piece of metal into the lock and began to twist and turn it gently, trying not to break it. A few minutes later, Max felt a click inside the lock, and gasped in surprise as it unlocked. 

She pushed open the door, and looked over at Robin, who was staring at her in disbelief. “Wanna get out of here?”

They both ran out of the cell and went to the front of Dustin and Lucas’s cell. 

“What happened? How are you guys out?” Lucas asked. 

“Picked the lock,” Max said, beginning to work on their lock. 

“Someone’s coming!” Robin told Max. “We have to go, we’ll come back, we’ll go get help.” 

Max looked at Lucas. He nodded. “We’ll be okay, just go.”

Max reached into the cell and pulled Lucas’s face as close to the bars as possible and kissed him. “I’m coming back,” she said, before running off with Robin in the opposite direction than the approaching footsteps. 

……..

Brenner walked through the little home that had been the Byers’ house in Maine. Many of their things were still there, but he could tell that they had fled. So the kids had succeeded in tipping them off. That was alright, only a minor setback. He knew there were only so many “safe” places that Eleven could go before running out. 

Brenner visited the Maine lab next, only to find it in complete disarray. 

“What happened?!” he asked angrily. 

“It was a group of teenagers. They came in the middle of the night, killed one of our security men, knocked several people unconscious, and held three of our doctors at gunpoint while they closed the gate. They knew what they were doing too. They were able to close the gate in less than twenty minutes,” one of the doctors told him. 

“I think I know who they were…” Brenner said, thinking about the group of friends he had seen Eleven around. “They’ll be dealt with.”

……..

Joyce was holding on to the armrests of her seat in the plane as the turbulence hit. Russia was still a long ways away and the flight hadn’t exactly been smooth. 

“Turbulence is normal, Joyce. We’re gonna be fine,” Murray said casually. Joyce gave him a look. 

“Can I ask you a question?” Murray asked after another moment of silence. 

“Sure, why not?” Joyce answered. She’d do anything to take her mind off of the plane ride. 

“What was the deal with you and Jim? Did you guys ever go out or anything?” 

Joyce let out a small chuckle. “We were never officially a couple or anything like that… but we almost were… a few times actually. We went back and forth. When we were in high school, we were really fond of each other. We hung out and skipped class together. I had a crush on him for a while, but then he started seeing Chrissy Carpenter, and I gave up on the whole thing. Started going out with Lonnie, and by the time he broke up with Chrissy, I thought I was in love… Sometimes I wonder what my life would have been like if I had seen through Lonnie’s lies and left him. I wonder if Jim and I would have actually worked.

“After Lonnie moved away and Hopper moved back to town, I got nervous. Old feelings kept coming back, and I just… tried to stay away from him because he was… bad for me, I guess. I started seeing Bob, but I realized while I was with him, that the feelings I had for Hopper weren’t really going to go away by dating someone else. That’s why I felt even worse when Bob died. I fought against him harder. Hopper, he… he came to see me more often and asked for my advice all the time. And then, one day… he asked me out, like a real date, and I got scared. 

“Right before he died I promised to go out to Enzo’s with him.” Joyce wiped away a tear that she didn’t even realize she had shed. “Murray, I need for him to be okay. I need to bring him back with us.”

“We will,” Murray said. “We will.”

……..

Nancy and Jonathan left the kids at the hotel and drove to the New York lab. They hoped that this one would go just as smooth as the last. This time, the security guard didn’t ask any questions and let them in when they told him they worked for Dr. Brenner. 

This lab was even smaller than the one in Maine. It was almost like it had been a department store before it had been converted to a laboratory. They entered through the front door, and were surprised when they were greeted by the receptionist so quickly. 

“Hello, how can I help you?” the woman behind the desk asked, smiling. 

“We work with Dr. Brenner,” Nancy answered. “He sent us to take an inventory.”

“Oh, yes. Give me one moment and I’ll be right back,” the receptionist said, leaving through a door behind her desk.

Jonathan took a look around while they waited. He saw a keycard in the receptionist’s jacket lying on her chair and grabbed it. “Hope she doesn’t realize it’s gone before we are,” he told Nancy.

A minute later, the woman returned with a man who was dressed in black pants and a white button down shirt. “This is Mr. Hannigan, he’ll take you downstairs,” the receptionist smiled brightly at them.

They followed Mr. Hannigan down the stairs, no elevator, to a small hallway that ended in a concrete door. They walked down the hallway, straight to that door. Mr. Hannigan pulled out a keycard and opened it. He motioned for Nancy and Jonathan to go first. 

Nancy stepped into the room, followed by Jonathan and that was when they realized they had made a huge mistake.

……..

Max and Robin ran for their lives. They distinctly heard when the lab workers found their empty cell, and they began to chase after them. They were lucky to have gotten a small head-start. 

Max ran into a dead end once, Robin pulling on her arm and whispering, “This way!” frantically. 

They finally made it to a door to the outside, but neither of them stopped running, going straight for the woods. They didn’t know where they were going, they barely even remembered where they were. Robin had a stitch in her side, but never let up. 

They ran for what felt like forever, until they found a house. Max ran up onto the porch of the house and pounded her fist against the door, Robin following suit. They didn’t know how far away the bad men would be. 

A few moments later, an old woman opened the door, looking confused but concerned about all the ruckus and the disheveled appearances of the girls.

“Listen, we’re so sorry to barge in, but we need to hide. There are bad men chasing after us, will you please help us?” Robin asked the woman.

The old woman looked over at Max’s desperate face and then moved aside, saying, “Hurry, there’s a bunker in my basement where you can go hide.”

Robin and Max didn’t hesitate to run down the stairs of the basement to find the bunker. The woman followed them down and told them, “I’m going to cover the entrance. Don’t make a sound.”

They nodded and sat in the bunker, while the old woman pushed a small bookcase in front of the door. It made the entrance completely invisible to anyone who didn’t know it was there. 

Above their heads, Max and Robin could hear as the woman talked with some of the men who had been chasing them. 

“Have you seen anyone come by? A redhead and dirty blonde haired girl?” one of the men asked.

“Oh, actually, they came out of the woods not long ago. They ran down the road that way,” the woman said. 

“Do we mind if we have a look around, just to be sure?” another man asked.

“I don’t mind, but they’re not here, I assure you.” They heard footsteps moving all around the house. Eventually, they heard the sound of someone coming down the stairs to the basement. The girls held their breath and waited for what felt like forever before they heard the footsteps going back up the stairs, but they remained quiet, just in case. 

……..

Steve, Dustin, and Lucas were sitting in the room they had brought them to when they first got there, eating some food that the lab men had begrudgingly given them. 

“How did they even get out?” Steve asked. He had heard the commotion, but didn’t see anything that had actually happened. 

“Max picked the lock, she started to pick ours too, but the bad men came back, so they had to run. She said that they were going to get help,” Lucas told him.

“Well, at least their out, y’know. How long do you think it’ll take them to get help?” Steve took a drink of water.

“If they don’t get caught? No clue. Who’re they gonna tell? Hopper’s gone, all the adults who know about all this are completely out of the question, and mostly out of the state,” Dustin said.

“What about El? Maybe she could—?” Steve began.

Dustin interrupted, “No powers, remember?”

“Right, right… so we’re just… screwed,” Steve said.

“Pretty much,” Dustin replied. 

……..

Joyce woke up to the feeling of the plane touching down. She had fallen asleep at some point, though she thinks that Murray might’ve slipped her something to calm her down. 

“Rise and shine,” Murray said. 

“How long was I asleep?” Joyce asked.

Murray shrugged. “A while.”

“Well, what are we going to do first?” 

“I’ve been thinking about what you said about having four people instead of three, and I think I have an idea,” Murray told her. “After Alexei died, I found a paper with a phone number on it in his papers. I called it, and it was Alexei’s brother.”

“He has a brother?” Joyce asked, wondering what this had to do with anything.

“Yes, and his brother works for the same people he did, but after they killed Alexei, he wants to come over to our side. He wants to rebel, but doesn’t know how to. Maybe if we had an insider like him, we’d be able to do this easier.”

Joyce considered him for a moment. “And you’re sure we can trust him?”

Murray nodded. “I’ve talked to him a lot. He’s a good guy, very much like Alexei.”

“Okay then,” Joyce said. “Call him.”

……..

Nancy and Jonathan heard the door slam behind them. The room that Mr. Hannigan had led them to was completely empty. They were stuck there. 

“What are we gonna do?” Nancy asked Jonathan, fear in her eyes. 

“I don’t know,” he said. There was literally no way out of this cement room. “They knew we were coming.”

They sat down on the floor, sitting in silence for a moment. 

“Maybe we could somehow get El’s attention, so that she could see us in here,” Nancy suggested. 

“I don’t think it works like that, I think she has to be channeling us…” Jonathan replied. 

“Well, we have to at least try, don’t we? Besides… Mike used to call her, and she listened,” Nancy said. 

“Yeah, okay… how?”

“Let’s just… hold hands and think about El, like try to talk to her in our heads,” Nancy told him.

“Okay,” Jonathan grabbed both of Nancy’s hands and began to think, ‘El? El? Can you hear us? We need your help.’

……..

At first, El felt it as a whisper in the back of her mind. She brushed it off, thinking she was just hearing things, and tried to refocus on the mind-numbing tv show Mike had turned on in the hotel room. 

Then, it got louder. Someone was yelling her name, but not out loud. She delved further into her mind, trying to channel the voices. As she got closer to the right place, she recognized the voices that were calling out for her. Nancy and Jonathan.

She answered them in her mind, “We’re coming.”

She snapped out of the void quickly, coming back to the reality of the hotel room. 

“We have to go,” she said, standing up. 

“What? What’s going on?” Mike asked confusedly. 

“It’s Nancy and Jonathan, they need our help. They’re stuck in the lab,” El replied urgently. 

Mike and Will didn’t ask any more questions, and began to grab their supplies. 

“How are we going to get there?” Will asked, once they were ready to go. 

El closed her eyes for a minute. “There’s a car with the keys left in it parked at the far end of the parking lot.”

“We’re going to steal it?” Will asked, looking at her like she’d lost her mind. 

“We have no choice, we have to go save our family,” El told him in exasperation. She turned to Mike, “Can you drive it?”

Mike nodded. “Passed the permit test last month.”

They walked over to the car and got in. There was nobody around to see them, giving them a good start. 

Mike began to drive the car, a little uneasily, but he did his best, as El gave directions. 

Instead of going to the main gate, El took them to a dirt road that was near the fence. They got out and walked up to it. 

All three held pliers and began to work at the metal wiring of the fence. Once it was finally done, there was an opening just large enough for them to get through. Mike turned to the other two and asked, “Ready?” 

Will and El both nodded. They had a mission. And they were going to do everything they could to succeed. 

……..

Robin and Max sat at the old woman’s dining table, drinking hot chocolate after the men had left without finding them. 

“We can’t thank you enough,” Robin told the woman, who smiled back at her. 

“You girls look like you’ve been through a lot. You sure I can’t do anything else for ya?” the woman asked. 

“No, um, we don’t really know what to do next actually,” Max said. 

“What happened to you?” Boy was that a question… certainly one they couldn’t tell the whole truth about…

“You know that lab a couple miles away,” Max began. 

“Yeah, the power and energy one,” she said.

“Well, there are bad government men working there… and they held us hostage, and our friends… We made it out, but our friends are still there,” Max told her. 

“Why would they hold you hostage?”

“Because we found out about something they didn’t want us to know. We don’t know how to get our friends out, but all we ask is that you let us stay until we can figure it out,” Max pleaded.

The woman looked at her sympathetically, “Of course, you can both stay as long as you need.”

“Thank you,” Max said, smiling. 

……..

Steve, Dustin, and Lucas has gotten interrogated again, after the girls’ heist. They were all three sporting new bruises and injuries, back in their cells. 

Dustin and Lucas sat on opposite sides of their cell, talking. 

“Do you actually think we’ll ever make it out of here?” Dustin asked. 

“You’re the one who made it out of a Russian base, shouldn’t you be the one telling me?” Lucas said. 

“I shouldn’t have made it out of there. I should have died there. Honestly, the only reason I didn’t is because I traveled by air vent,” Dustin retorted.

Lucas shook his head and sat in silence for a minute. “Wonder where Max is right now?” 

“Probably halfway to Hawkins by now,” Dustin said. 

“She said she was going to get help.”

“Yeah, and where do you think help is? Definitely not anyone near here,” Dustin told him. 

“Well, wherever she is, I hope she’s safe,” Lucas said mostly to himself. 

“You love her… don’t you?” Dustin asked. 

“I… don’t know, let’s just go to bed,” Lucas said, turning over to lie down. 

Dustin laid down in his own bed and turned to look over at Lucas, who was facing away from him. “You love her.”

……..

Joyce, Murray, and Ivan walked into Alexei’s brother, Viktor’s home. Viktor had been eager to help them, and ushered them into his kitchen, giving them something to eat. Joyce sat at the table and listened as the three men conversed in Russian. She wished that someone would translate for her. Murray must’ve sensed her uncomfortableness, because he began speaking in English to her.

“Viktor says that the security for the base is tough. Tougher than the Starcourt base. But there are a lot of entrances, which makes it easier to get into. He says he should be able to get us in, no problem. But after that, he can’t do much. He’ll volunteer to be the one to go after us if we’re caught, that way he can sneak us back out.”

Viktor then grabbed something off the counter in the kitchen, bringing to the table and pointing to it. “He says this is a map of the base. The gate is here, and the holding cells, where Hopper is, is over here. He says we won’t be able to close the gate and go get Hopper before being caught, so we’ll have to split up to get both things done. He can help get Jim with one of us, and the other two are in charge of closing the gate.”

“Okay, so when are we going to do this?” Joyce said, looking over the map.

“He says that tomorrow night is our best bet.” Joyce nodded. 

“We’re gonna get him out, Joyce,” Murray said. 

Joyce smiled, appreciating the sentiment. But after everything she’d been through, she wasn’t so sure.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ahh thank you for reading! Also special thanks to everyone who has encouraged me to keep writing this! I can't say that this story has been easy to write, I really hate going back and forth between so many storylines, but all of your comments make me feel happier about it!
> 
> Also, I'm here to give Lumax the attention it DESERVES, so YES, Lucas loves her!


	5. The Girl on the Other Side

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mike, El, and Will attempt to save Jonathan and Nancy from the New York lab, while Max and Robin try to save Dustin, Steve, and Lucas from the Ohio lab. Joyce and Murray begin the rescue mission to close the Russian gate and find Hopper.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi there! As you might have noticed, I've added a chapter count of 8! In actuality, it's going to be two more real chapters + the 8th chapter being the epilogue, but I have a lot of ideas for the epilogue, so it'll probably still be just as long as the regular chapters. 
> 
> From here on, I'm hoping things will be going a lot more quickly, seeing as I would like to finish this fic before I return back to college, which is in one week! 
> 
> I have everything mapped out, so expect quick updates for the rest of the story, and thank you for all your kudos and comments!

Nancy and Jonathan sat in silence as they waited for something, anything to happen. Of course, they didn’t want to be killed or interrogated, but at the moment, they were so bored from just sitting there forever, doing absolutely nothing. 

“Do you think that this is going to be the last crazy adventure we ever have together?” Nancy asked. “I mean, it feels different this time… like maybe we’ll be done with all the monsters and labs…. If we actually get out, that is.”

Jonathan chuckled. “Well, I for one, would appreciate the no monsters and labs, but no more crazy adventures? What would we even do with ourselves? Live normally?”

Nancy laughed, “Jonathan Byers… you are my crazy adventure.”

“Nancy Wheeler…. You HAVE been my crazy adventure from the moment you came to talk to me when Will went missing,” Jonathan said. 

“Do you think it would’ve been better if I hadn’t chosen Steve after everything?” Nancy asked him.

“No,” Jonathan answered, surprising her. “I think it’s better that you got to know what it’s like to be with someone else. You didn’t know what you wanted yet.”

“I guess you’re right. I feel guilty about how long it took for me to realize, though,” Nancy paused. “My brother knows what he wants already… has for a lot longer than I have.”

“Everyone is different,” he told her. “You shouldn’t feel bad about who you are. And you and your brother are completely different people. And let’s face it, Mike and El’s relationship is NOT a good example of a normal relationship.”

Nancy smiled. “Yeah, they are kinda unique, aren’t they?”

“We’re pretty unique too,” Jonathan said. 

“Yeah, we are.”

……..

Evening turned into night, as Mike, El, and Will made their way cautiously towards the small lab in New York. El whispered directions to the boys every so often, so they would be safe and unseen by the lab workers. They had first entered the premises through the hole they had created with their pliers, then they had walked towards the back door of the building. They had had to stop and hide behind a dumpster to wait for a worker to get to his car and drive away before they had a clear shot at the door.

Mike opened the door cautiously, aiming his gun carefully through the threshold and stepping into the building. El stayed close behind him, and Will followed. El led him through the hallways, before having to duck into an empty room. They sat in silence for El’s “all clear.” 

“What’s going on?” Mike asked after a few minutes.

“Too many people, we can’t move. Not yet,” El whispered. 

Mike nodded. 

“Can you see them? Are they okay?” Will asked. 

“They’re okay. They’re locked in a room in the basement. They’re just talking, not hurt,” El assured him, grasping his hand for a moment. 

The three kids sat on the floor, realizing it might be a while before they are able to get moving again. El continued to concentrate. 

……..

The day in Russia is beginning to fade into the late afternoon, when Joyce, Murray, Ivan, and Viktor are scheduled to begin their plan. Joyce listens as the men finalize the plans, Murray occasionally providing translations for her. 

They are already dressed, wearing Russian military uniforms that Viktor had gotten for them. 

“You ready?” She heard Murray ask her. 

“Yeah, just can’t believe I’m in another one of these uniforms again…. You’re going with me, right?” 

“Yeah, about that… we can’t be the ones to go get Jim. Viktor says it’s too dangerous for him to be near the gate because he never is down there, and they would get suspicious. He says they send new people down there all the time, so we won’t be noticed as much,” Murray explained. 

Joyce sighed, she’d really wanted to be the one to save him. 

“We have to go now,” Ivan said. 

They walked out and got into Viktor’s car and began driving to the base. No turning back now.

……..

Max and Robin woke up to the smell of breakfast cooking. Max had slept on the couch, and Robin had slept on the loveseat. 

“Ah, you’re awake! I’m making scrambled eggs and bacon, if you’re hungry,” the old woman, Rose, they were staying with said when they walked into the kitchen. 

“Thank you, we really appreciate this,” Robin said as they sat down at the table. 

“Yeah, thank you so much,” Max echoed. 

“It’s really no trouble, dears. Especially after what you’ve been through, you deserve to be pampered a little bit… Have you figured out what you are going to do about your friends?”

“Um, sort of,” Max said. “We talked about it last night, and came up with a plan. We don’t know if it will work, but we’re going to try.”

“Well, of course you are. Friendships are more important than anything in the world, really. Sometimes your friends can mean more to you than family.”

“Yeah, they really are,” Robin agreed. 

“Well,” Rose said. “I wish you both good luck, and if you need anything else, you know where I’ll be.”

“Thank you,” they told her.

……..

Steve could hear Lucas and Dustin bickering in the next cell, and rolled his eyes. “Hey!” he shouted. “Can you guys shut up? You’re making my head hurt.”

“Sorry, Steve,” Dustin said. 

“Will you settle something for us?” Lucas asked. 

“Like what?” Steve replied, wondering what in the world was so important that they had to argue about it right now. 

“Dustin says that the Neverending Story is better than Lord of the Rings, but he’s obviously wrong, right Steve?”

“Seriously, that’s what you’re fighting about. What does it even matter?” Steve complained. 

“It matters because we have nothing else to do, please just answer the question,” Dustin said. 

“Oh my god, I don’t even know, okay, I’ve never seen either of those,” Steve conceded. 

“Dustin only says Neverending Story because he sings the song for Suzie, if he actually revealed the truth, I would be happy,” Lucas said. 

“You’re just jealous that you and Max don’t have a song,” Dustin accused. 

“As if, really funny, Henderson,” Lucas laughed. 

Steve rolled his eyes and lightly hit his head on the wall of his cell. 

……..

Jonathan checked his watch for what seemed like the thousandth time. They had been locked away for a long time now, and still no sign of anyone.

“Do you think they are coming?” Nancy asked. “It’s been a long time. They would be here by now if they heard us.”

“Give them some more time, they probably have to find a way to get to us without being seen. It could take a while without clearance.”

Nancy nodded in understanding. “I just wish there was some way to be sure that they were coming for us, you know?”

“Yeah, but we’ll be okay. We’ll get out,” Johnathan reassured her, though he had no idea if that were true.

“How do you know?” Nancy asked. 

Just as Jonathan was about to answer, the door came bursting open, revealing three slightly disheveled teens. 

“Okay,” Mike said, satisfied that Nancy and Jonathan were both fine and alive, and now safe. “Let’s go.”

Nancy and Jonathan didn’t hesitate to get out of the room. Nancy ran forward, hugging her little brother. “Thank you for saving us,” she told him.

“No problem,” Mike smiled. 

……..

Robin and Max laid low at the bushes surrounding the Ohio lab. It was surprising how barren the area was, there was barely any security at all. Although, the girls figured that it was a different story inside. Still, they had to try.

Robin stepped towards an exposed window, and peeked inside. The room was empty, so she gestured for Max to follow. Robin lifted the window open and climbed through. A second later, Max was doing the same. 

“Still got that piece of metal?” Robin asked. 

“Yeah,” Max answered. 

“Good, just in case…” 

They walked cautiously through the halls, hiding in various rooms and closets as they heard the sounds of lab workers go about their usual business. 

They traveled in this fashion for nearly fifteen minutes, when Robin stopped. 

“I’m lost,” she admitted. “I don’t know where we are, or where the boys are from here…”

Max looked at her nervously. “It’s okay… let’s just keep walking around and maybe we’ll see something we recognize…”

They were walking down a hallway, when they heard someone coming. Looking for somewhere to hide, Max quickly grabbed Robin by the arm and pulled her through a door, whispering, “In here!”

They opened the door into a stairwell, and having no where else to run, took off down the stairs. They kept running until they reached another door, and threw themselves in. 

Breathing a sigh of relief, Max turned to see where they had ended up, when she caught Robin’s terrified eyes. Max looked to see what was so frightening, and what she saw was enough to make anyone afraid. 

It was another gate, glowing, bright, and massive. They were all utterly and completely… screwed. 

……..

“I miss it,” Dustin said suddenly, after about a half hour of silence. 

“What?” Lucas replied, confused.

“I miss the way things used to be. Before Will and El moved away. I miss biking around town together, all six of us. I miss sneaking El out of the cabin, and taking her to try new things. We used to all be so close, and now? Well, there’s not really much we can do together anymore, especially when two party members are living across the country.”

“Yeah,” Lucas agreed. “I miss it, too.”

“Sometimes I feel like having a long distance friendship is even harder than a long distance relationship, and I have both,” Dustin continued. “Maybe if I… you know, broke up with Suzie, then it wouldn’t be so bad. I mean, half the people I care about are living in completely different sides of the country.”

“No shame, my man,” Steve said from the other cell. “If breaking up with her makes you feel better about your friends being gone, then do it.”

“I don’t want to is the problem,” Dustin mumbled. 

“It’s gonna suck either way,” Steve replied. “You think it was easy for me to let Nancy go?”

“No.”

“It was one of the hardest things I’ve ever done,” Steve admitted.

“How long did it take you to get over it?” Dustin asked. 

“A while… six, seven months, maybe. But if it’s the right choice, you’ll know right away.”

“Thanks, Steve.”

“No problem, Henderson.”

……..

The Russian base was a lot more lax than Joyce had been expecting. There really wasn’t much security, other than the guards that stood outside the doors. The men didn’t even look their way when they had passed, their uniforms instantly blending them into the crowd of Russian militia. 

Murray leaned to Joyce’s ear and whispered, “Viktor is taking us to a place we can blend in for a while before we get started with the mission.”

Joyce kept her eyes trained forward, but nodded to acknowledge she had heard what he’d told her. 

They followed Viktor for about ten minutes, earning no suspicious looks from anyone. It was as if they were used to seeing new faces all the time. 

They finally came to a room, where Viktor ushered them in, a few floors below the entrance. 

Viktor began to speak, and Murray began to translate for Joyce. 

“He says that this is where we are to stay until he returns. We cannot roam through the base. And we must act like we are working on this,” he gestured to the machinery that was laid about the room.

Joyce listened, nervously wondering how far away Jim was, and when, if ever, she would see him again. 

……..

Nancy, Jonathan, Mike, El, and Will were hiding in an empty room in the New York lab, as they reconvened and planned to leave. 

“We can’t leave without closing the gate,” Nancy told them. 

“We don’t have time, okay?” Mike replied, agitatedly. “We have to get out of here!”

“But if we leave, then we’ll have came here for no reason, for nothing. We have to close it,” Nancy argued. 

“They’re probably guarding it after Maine, how are we even supposed to get to it?” Will interjected.

“Thank you!” Mike sassed.

“Well, whatever we do, we have to figure it out fast. I don’t think we can hide out in here for very much longer…” Jonathan said, nervously. 

“I say we just cut our losses and go to Chicago, like we told Mrs. Byers we would. We can get someone else to go deal with it,” Mike suggested. 

“But we’re already here, Mike! We can just go take care of it right now!” Nancy yelled. 

“Stop!” El shouted, causing the bickering to come to a halt. “There’s no gate here.”

“What?” Jonathan asked. 

“There’s no gate. I checked…. I checked every room in the building. There’s not a gate here,” El repeated. 

The other four stared for a moment before Will finally broke the silence, “Well, that solves that problem.”

……..

“What are we going to do?” Robin asked as she and Max walked through the halls of the lab. 

“We have to get the guys and get out of here… then we can deal with… the gate,” Max said.

“Well, okay, but how are we going to deal with it? We can’t just call the police about something like that…” Robin replied. 

“I know that. We’ll have to call Joyce and tell her, she has connections…” 

“Yeah, but didn’t you pay attention? There wasn’t a machine back there to turn off. This is completely different from the one that the Russians made,” Robin said. 

“So? Doesn’t make a difference.. a gate is still a gate and— Robin?” 

Robin had stopped walking, and was looking into a room to her left, confusion etched into her face. 

Max ran back to get a look herself. 

“It’s a girl with no hair…” Robin whispered. “What’s she doing here?”

Max’s eyes widened as she realized who the girl was. “She’s like El!”

“Excuse me?” A man’s voice interrupted. “What do we have here? Couldn’t bask in your victorious escape for too long? You really shouldn’t have come back…” 

……..

Dustin, Lucas, and Steve heard the commotion as the girls were brought back to their cell from the day before. Dustin and Lucas shared sad and scared looks, realizing that the girls had been recaptured. 

Steve swore lightly to himself in the other cell. 

“We’re so screwed, aren’t we?” Dustin asked.

Lucas simply nodded. 

They listened as Max shouted at the top of her lungs, “PUT ME DOWN RIGHT NOW! I SWEAR TO GOD, IF YOU DON’T PUT ME DOWN—“ 

There was a loud banging sound and Max’s screams died out, replaced with the sounds of her whimpering. 

Robin appeared to be cooperating better, as they heard her speaking, “Do NOT touch me.”

They heard the sound of the girls’ cell being slammed shut and the sound of multiple locks being locked. 

……..

It was by complete coincidence that El decided to check up on Max. Or perhaps she had sensed her best friend’s cries, but El had to check up on her. 

They had escaped the New York lab an hour ago, with only a few minor roadblocks. Mike had shot a man in the shoulder to get away, but he had no other choice if they wanted to escape. 

So now they were on their way back to Murray’s house in Chicago, having decided that they were in over their heads with trying to fight at these labs. 

But something told El to check on her friends, because after everything, they were just as much a part of this as she was. 

She walked quietly in the void to see Max sitting on a bed that was dirty and looked uncomfortable. She was crying, which set off red alarms for El, as she had only seen Max cry a few times. 

El broadened her view, so she could see where Max was better, and found that she was locked away with her other friends. 

El felt a tear fall down her face.

“What’s wrong?” Mike asked her, gently grasping her hand. 

“They have Max. And our other friends, too. We have to go to Ohio. We have to save them.”

Nancy and Mike made eye contact through the mirror in the car, and Mike nodded. 

“We will. We’re going to save them.”


	6. 007

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The kids of Hawkins make some interesting discoveries and prepare for the final showdown. Joyce and Murray begin their journey to close the gate, while Hopper's fate is still in question.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys! I stayed up late last night to finish this chapter! Let me just warn you right now.... I can't wait for you to read the ending of this one.

Joyce watched the clock above them nervously as they waited for Viktor to give them the ‘all clear’ so they could start their mission. There had been no fuss at all as they pretended to work. They hadn’t even been interrupted once. Joyce assumed this was a good thing, hopefully the way things stayed. 

“What are you going to say to him?” Murray said, pulling Joyce out of her thoughts.

“What?” 

“To Jim. What are you going to say to him when you see him again?” Murray repeated.

“Oh… I haven’t really thought about it,” Joyce said.

“Well, you haven’t seen him in over a year, surely there’s gotta be something you’ll want to tell him right away,” Murray presumed. 

Joyce glared at him for making her think about this. If she was being completely honest, talking to Hopper again made her extremely nervous because she knew this was going to change everything… again. 

Murray smiled back knowingly and returned to pretending to be busy with work.

Joyce rolled her eyes and did the same. 

Tonight couldn’t come quick enough. 

……..

After Max and Robin had been back in their cells for a while, they had all been quiet for nearly an hour, Lucas broke the silence. 

“What happened?” he asked. 

“We made it out and stayed the night with this old lady. She hid us in her basement, while the men were looking for us. We decided to come back for you guys, but everything got screwed up,” Robin began. “We got lost, couldn’t find you guys, so we just kept walking around, hoping to find something familiar. We ended up running into a gate, like the one the Russians made. That’s what this place is for. They’re trying to do the same thing those Russians were.”

“And Hawkins Lab,” Lucas interjected. 

“It was huge, and bright,” Max said. “We think they have someone like El here… we found her room…”

“You should’ve just left, and went back to Hawkins for help,” Steve told them, having to raise his voice to reach the girls’ cell. 

“What? And leave you guys here? No way, we’re all in this together,” Robin replied snarkily. 

“How were you going to get us out anyway?” Dustin asked.

“Oh my god!” Max yelled, remembering the piece of metal she had kept her her pocket. 

She quickly stood up and ran over to the locks, looking hopeful as she stuck the metal into the first one. 

“Hello? Anyone going to answer the question?” Dustin asked. 

“I have a piece of metal to pick the lock again,” Max replied, twisting and turning the metal. She felt a click as the first lock unlocked, and she moved on to the next. “Hold on…” she said.

The piece of metal broke, just as Max was about to unlock the next lock. She swore loudly, throwing the left over piece on the floor in frustration. 

“What happened?” Lucas asked, hearing her yells. 

“The stupid thing broke! We can’t get out!” Max threw herself back onto her mattress, fuming with anger. 

……..

Driving from New York to Ohio was going to take all night, according to Nancy, but there was no way they could stop now. They had to keep going, even if they were exhausted. 

The kids tried to sleep a little, El managing to fall asleep with her head on Mike’s shoulder. Mike was lightly snoring as he slept with his head against the glass of the window. Will couldn’t get comfortable, so he gave up on sleeping all together. 

“How much longer?” he asked his brother, who was driving. 

“Six more hours. Why don’t you try sleeping again?” Jonathan answered. 

“I can’t get comfortable,” Will replied. 

“Will, do you want to trade places at the next stop? Maybe you’d be more comfortable here?” Nancy offered.

“No, that’s okay. I don’t think I’ll be able to sleep either way,” Will said. 

“You sure?” she asked again.

“Yeah, I’m sure. You should try to get some sleep too, Nancy.”

“He’s right,” Jonathan interjected. “Sleep.”

Nancy rolled her eyes at him, but laid her head against the back of the seat in defeat anyways, closing her eyes.

Will tried again, unsuccessfully to get some sleep. 

……..

Joyce was still pretending to be busy, when Viktor finally returned. 

He looked at Murray, speaking in Russian again, but Joyce got the gist of what he was saying. 

It was time. 

Joyce quickly stood to follow Murray, who caught her up on what they needed to do as they walked out of the room.

“He gave us this keycard,” Murray said, holding the card up. “It’ll get us anywhere we need to go. I have a map of the building if we need it, but the base has a relatively simple layout and I think it’ll be easy to get there. If anyone asks us questions, let me do the talking…”

“Great, how far do we need to go and how long is this going to take?” Joyce asked anxiously. 

“Why? You gotta hot date or something?” Murray joked. 

Joyce glared back at him, as they continued down an empty hallway. “Not the time for jokes, Murray.”

“Okay, okay, fine. It’s pretty far down, like twelve floors, but there’s an elevator that’ll take us halfway there. We’ll have to take the stairs for the rest of the way. I’m not sure how long, but if everything goes right? Maybe an hour? But we’ll assume that something will go wrong and say an hour and a half.”

Joyce nodded, taking a deep breath. “This is really happening.”

“Yes, it is.”

……..

It all happened so quickly. 

Steve had been contemplating it for a while now. He couldn’t wait anymore. 

He waited for the final cell to be opened as they were about to be taken out for breakfast, then Steve attacked the guard. 

He ran forward, tackling the guard to the floor and began to punch his face. The guard got a couple hits in, but Steve was able to overpower him, and the guard was knocked out cold. 

Steve looked up to see his four friends’ faces staring back at him in surprise. “Let’s go,” he said.

They all began to run in the direction of the nearest exit, passing no one. Someone had seriously underestimated them. 

Just as they were about to escape, Robin stopped running. “Wait!” she gasped.

“What are you doing? We have to go… right now!” Steve yelled. 

“But what about the girl?” Robin asked. 

“What girl?” Steve replied in confusion.

“You know, the one with powers or something… We can’t can’t just leave her here,” Robin looked at Max, hoping to get some sympathy.

“We don’t have much time,” Steve pleaded. 

“I know, but that girl is down there, no one else knows about her, we can’t leave her!” Robin begged.

“She’s right,” Max interrupted. “If this girl is going through everything that El had to… we can’t leave her here.”

Steve looked between Max and Robin, sighing and giving in. “Okay, fine. But we have to be fast. Which way do we go?”

……..

Jonathan, Nancy, Will, Mike, and El were getting closer now. They were less than an hour away from where El had located Max and the others. 

“This is like the worst road trip ever,” Mike said, bored finally tormenting him. 

“Not much longer, now,” Nancy promised. 

Mike huffed and leaned his head back against the seat. 

“El, can you check on them again?” Nancy asked.

El closed her eyes, focusing in on Max first. The void filled her head quickly, and soon she was walking towards Max’s shape, only she was going to have to run to keep up with her.

“They’re running through the lab,” El said.

“Why? Are they making it out?” Mike asked.

“I don’t think so… They’re going somewhere to do something important… not leaving,” she whispered. 

She opened her eyes. “We need to hurry.”

Jonathan pressed his foot on the accelerator a little harder. 

………

Joyce and Murray took the elevator down six floors into the ground, exited the elevator, and began to walk down the stairs the rest of the way. The stairwell was frightening, spiraling down a seemingly endless hole. The stairs themselves were very rusty, and needed replacing. 

They knew they were getting close because they started to run into other Russians, who didn’t pay them much attention. Murray would merely greet anyone who acknowledged them, and they would continue walking. Joyce kept her mouth shut, so that they wouldn’t hear her speak in English. 

They finally reached the end of the stairs, where a locked door was in their way. 

Murray looked at the keypad. “Viktor said that the code was the first eight digits of pi…”

“Well, I hope you know that one, because I don’t think we could get Suzie to tell us this one right now,” Joyce joked. 

“I know it, I know it,” Murray huffed, typing in the numbers 3.1415926. 

The door came unlocked and they walked into the control center for the gate. 

There was a man sitting at the controls. Murray stepped forward, speaking in Russian, telling him that his supervisor wanted to see him, and he should hurry. 

The man quickly rose out of his chair and left the room completely empty, other than Murray and Joyce, of course. 

“Okay, Viktor said to radio him when we were about to begin,” Murray pulled out a walkie, and began speaking in Russian again.

When he was finished, he put the walkie back into his pocket and stepped forward, looking at all the controls. “Ready?” he asked Joyce.

“Let’s end this,” Joyce said, staring into the bright red light glowing from the gate. 

……..

Max and Robin quickly ran, leading the group down the stairs to the room they had seen the girl in. 

They were sure that someone had noticed they were gone by now, and the bad men would be swarming the premises any second. 

“How much further?” Steve asked, as they flew around another corner. 

“We’re close,” Robin answered. 

They finally reached the hallway that they had found the girl in, and Max ran directly towards her door. 

Max turned the handle, but it was locked. 

“Here,” Steve said, gesturing for her to let him handle it. He stood back and then charged at the door, breaking it down. 

Everyone flooded into the room to see a slightly startled girl with a shaved head sitting on a small bed and wearing a hospital gown. 

Robin carefully walked forward, trying not to scare her. 

“I’m Robin... and these are my friends,” she said, gesturing to the group. 

“What... is.. friend?” the girl asked. 

Lucas felt a sense of deja vu crash over him as he answered, “A friend is someone who you’d do anything for.”

“We want to help you,” Robin told her, slowly reaching her hand. 

The girl watched silently as Robin touched her. 

Robin looked down at the girl’s arm. 

007\. 

“Let us help you. Come with us,” Robin said. 

The girl looked at each of them, before finally nodding, and standing. 

They moved out of the room quickly, and hoped they hadn’t taken too long. 

The group ran up the stairs and back through several hallways before running into trouble. 

A bad man, waiting for them, was standing at the door they needed to go through to get out. 

........

After receiving word from Joyce and Murray, Viktor and Ivan set off to retrieve Hopper. 

Viktor was a little remorseful of having to give them the more dangerous job, but he couldn’t be seen down there. Especially, not after Alexei being seen as a traitor. 

Viktor and Ivan’s plans were simple, but important. They were going to take Hopper out of the cell and claim it was for questioning, but then they would take him out to Viktor’s car. 

It wouldn’t be hard, but Viktor still worried because he felt obligated to repay these Americans for how they treated his brother with kindness. 

They reached the notorious cell of the American, Jim Hopper, and opened the door to reveal a brutally tortured man. He had been beaten to an inch of his life more than once, but those days were over. 

Because Viktor was going to do everything he could to get this man to safety. 

........

The bad man blocking their way, no other way out, things were not looking good for the group of escapees at the Ohio lab. 

Still, the group acted as if they couldn’t see the man and walked directly towards him. 

“Where do you all think you’re going?” the man asks with an evil smirk. 

“I know where you’re going,” a voice behind the man said. 

The man turned to look directly into the eyes of Nancy Wheeler and her pistol. 

“See you in hell,” Nancy said, shooting him dead. He dropped to the floor, without another breath. 

Behind Nancy, were Jonathan, Mike, El, and Will, looking very tired, but fierce and unstoppable. 

One second later, the scene went from fearful to happy as the group began to hug each other. 

“I can’t believe you’re here!” Max yelled as she almost tackled El. 

Will and Mike were sharing a group hug with Lucas and Dustin, while Nancy, Jonathan, Steve, and Robin greeted each other. 

The girl, 007, stood quietly to the side. 

El, noticing her and her familiar appearance, unfolded herself out of Max’s embrace and went over to her. 

El didn’t speak yet, simply reaching for the girls arm. She traced her finger over the small tattoo, and then proceeded to expose her own, to show the girl that she was not alone. 

“Sisters,” El said. 

“Sisters?” the girl questioned. 

“Yes, I’ll teach you more about it later, when we’re out of here.”

The girl smiled. 

“Well, well, well...” a menacing voice from near the doorway said. “Look who we have here.”

El’s blood ran cold as she looked over to the man who was speaking, staring directly into his sinister eyes. 

Dr. Brenner.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow! A major cliffhanger! A rare thing in my stories, but it was super fun to write. I will be back, hopefully in a couple days with the next chapter. Two to go!!


	7. the Last Fight

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Joyce and Hopper finally reunite, and the kids in the Ohio lab take on the last gate.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi! I'm so excited for y'all to read this one, because it was so fun to write (also why it only took me 2 days). We've reached the end of this plotline, and I'm so grateful for all the kudos and comments I've received for this fic. I still have the epilogue to write, but expect that sooner than later!!
> 
> WARNING: This chapter contains graphic depictions of violence and very gory details, particularly in the first half of the chapter. DO NOT read if you are sensitive to descriptions of violence.

Hopper wasn’t surprised when two Russians showed up at his door. He’d been expecting this for a while. He wasn’t giving them the information that they wanted, and they were finally going to get rid of him. 

He didn’t attempt to escape or try to run off, he didn’t even have the energy for that. He simply let the men handcuff him and take him out of his room. 

What did surprise Hopper, was the direction they were going. They were headed the wrong way for the interrogation room that he’d visited many times. He’d assumed that they were going to kill him there, but apparently they wanted a more scenic view for his execution, because he was being led out the door. 

The two men pulled him along to a vehicle parked in a secluded place near the Russian base. They sat him down, and took off his handcuffs. Hopper closed his eyes, waiting for the inevitable, only for it to never come. 

When he opened his eyes again, he saw that the two men were sitting with him, offering him some food. Hopper took the sandwich out of the man’s hand hesitantly. 

“It’s okay, Jim,” Ivan said. “I’m a friend of Murray Bauman’s. You’ll be safe here with us. We’re just waiting for the others to come back.”

“Others?” Hopper asked.

“Yeah, Murray and Joyce,” Ivan answered. 

……..

The bright lights of the gate down deep in the Russian base reminded Joyce of everything that had happened last year. She felt all her emotions crash into each other as she watched the last inch close. Then it was darker, and Joyce came crashing back into reality. 

“Okay, we have to hurry and get out of here before we get caught,” Murray said, grabbing Joyce by the arm. 

They quickly exited the control center, running back up the rusty stairwell. It was as if luck was on their side, because they did not meet another soul on the stairs. Joyce almost cried when they reached the elevator that would bring them back to the exit level. 

However, when they made it back upstairs, they discovered that they weren’t in the clear quite yet. It seemed as if the base were in frenzied panic, men running around and yelling. 

Joyce momentarily got worried that they had somehow already found out about the gate until Murray whispered in her ear, “It’s not us, they’re talking about an escaped prisoner.”

Joyce nodded, and quickly began following Murray out of the building. She’d never been so relieved to breathe fresh air. 

Outside of the base, there was no one around, and Joyce could no longer contain her excitement. 

“We did it! I can’t believe we made it!” Joyce said, nearly jumping. 

“You ready to see Jim?” Murray asked, already knowing the answer. 

This time Joyce didn’t glare at Murray for his usual presumptions, instead she gave him a genuine smile. “Yes.”

……..

Dr. Brenner, standing ten feet away from El for the first time in nearly three years, stares coldly into Eleven’s tearful eyes. 

“Eleven… my dear, it took me so long to finally get to you. My, how you’ve grown. And you’re hair… well, we’re going to have to do something about that…”

“No,” El said, glaring at him. 

“Eleven, you are my most valued experiment… Did you really think I would just… give up?” he replied, taking a few steps forward. “I watched you from afar, paid attention to who your friends are, sent people to follow you… I was especially disappointed when you had ended up in Maine, and then made some progress in ruining my plans with your destruction of the gate there… There’s one gate left… here, though I am sure you could’ve guessed that. And you are going to help me expand it.”

“Get away from me,” El whispered. Brenner was only a couple feet away from her now. “GET AWAY FROM MEEEE!!” she screamed.

Then it happened. 

El’s scream filled the halls of the lab, breaking all the glass. The shards of glass came flying through the air, finding their target in Dr. Martin Brenner. The pieces stabbed him all over his body, and blood began to gush out. Brenner’s head began to appear slightly misshapen as if someone was squeezing it. His eyes popped out of their sockets. And he was dead. 

Brenner is dead. 

El’s scream died out, and she began to cry. Mike quickly ran forward, catching her before she could fall. He held onto her tightly, whispering quietly into her ear. Everyone else didn’t move. They were in shock. 

But everyone was certain of one thing… El’s powers were back. And they were stronger than they’d ever been before. 

……..

Joyce is walking back to Viktor’s vehicle, when she finally sees him. He’s standing beside the car. He looks different, like he’d nearly died in there… and he had. His beard was grown out and his body seemed sunken in. But it was still him. He was still Hopper. 

He looked up to see her standing there staring at him, and Joyce couldn’t take it anymore. 

Joyce ran directly to Hopper, throwing her arms around him, ignoring the tears that were flowing down her face.

“I can’t believe you’re okay, you’re alive,” she said into his chest. 

“Me? I can’t believe you’re here,” Hopper responded. 

Joyce stared into Hopper’s eyes, and suddenly her mind wasn’t thinking anymore. She stood on her tip toes and kissed him. “Jim, I’ve been so worried and lost without you. I know that I might sound crazy when I say this to you, but please just… hear me out, okay?… I think I’m falling in love with you.”

“Joyce… I never thought you’d ever say that to me, but I’m so happy you did… I think you and me? We’re good together. And if you’re in love with me, I’m in love with you too.”

Joyce grinned up at him, before kissing him again. 

“Is El okay?” Hopper asked.

“She’s doing great. She’s been living with me… we, uh, we moved to Maine…” Joyce said, honestly. 

“Maine? That’s… uh, far?” Hopper replied. 

“But I think we’re gonna move again,” Joyce admitted. 

“What made you change your mind?” Hopper asked. 

“I don’t want to live in fear anymore. I’ve learned that it’s not Hawkins that’s cursed. Bad things can happen anywhere. And besides, being afraid to live your life is a stupid way to live anyways.”

Hopper smiled. 

……..

Back at Viktor’s house, they were settling in for the night, when the phone began to ring. 

Viktor went to answer it, while the others continued talking. 

“Joyce,” Viktor called for her. “Phone.”

She rushed to grab the phone, hoping to hear from one of her kids, telling her that they made it to Murray’s safely. “Hello?”

“Mom,” Jonathan answered. “We are in Ohio. Don’t get mad, but… we were kind of meddling with the past of MK Ultra, and we’ve been going to all the labs. Anyways, that’s not really what’s important right now. There’s another gate to the Upside Down here. We have to close it, so El is going to try…”

“Wait, what? Jonathan, you were supposed to go straight to Murray’s,” Joyce replied.

“I know, and I’m sorry, but I didn’t know when you’d be coming back, so I didn’t want you to worry if you beat us to Murray’s.”

“Where exactly in Ohio are you?” Joyce asked. 

After receiving the location of the Ohio lab, Joyce ran back to the group. “We need to get back to our kids right now.”

……..

“I really missed you guys,” Will said, hugging Lucas, Dustin, and Max. 

“We missed you, too,” Lucas replied. “Any chance your mom will let you come stay in Hawkins for Halloween this year? It’s the best night of the year.”

“I’ll ask her,” Will smiled. 

“Hey, is that a taser?” Max asked, pointing to the object in Will’s hand.

“Oooh, let me see that!” Dustin shouted, reaching for it.

“No way! This is my taser! Nancy gave it to me,” Will explained. 

“Can I at least hold it?” Dustin asked. 

“No, I don’t trust you with it,” Will admitted. 

“Oh, come on, just let me see—ow!” Dustin whined, as Will put the taser on the lowest power and tased Dustin’s finger mid-sentence.

Across the room, Steve sat beside the girl, 007. 

“Hey,” he said, looking at her. 

Her blue eyes met his for just a moment as she spoke. “Hi.”

“I’m Steve,” he told her, reaching his hand out for a handshake. 

The girl looked at his hand in confusion, then lifted her arm out more to expose the 007 tattoo, signifying her ‘name’. 

“Seven?” Steve asked, as he read the mark.

The girl nodded sadly. 

“Well, we call Eleven El. So, if you want, we can give you a name too?”

The girl gave him a bright smile.

“Okay, let me think…” Steve said, pausing for a moment. “Seven…. What about Savannah?”

The girl smiled at him even bigger. “Savannah,” she said, trying the name out for herself. 

Steve wondered to himself what this poor girl had been put through. She looked to be around eighteen or nineteen years old, and has never had a name… until now. 

……..

El sat on the floor with her head on Mike’s shoulder, resting up for closing the final gate. The lab was empty now, her outburst earlier had taken more than just Brenner’s life. 

“Hey, El?” Mike turned to look down at her.

“Is this the part where you tell me that I don’t have to do this if I don’t want to, and I tell you that I have to do this?” El asked, raising her eyebrows at him.

“Actually, no,” Mike said. “What I was going to say was… I believe in you and I trust you. Of course, I want you to be careful, but I know you can do it.”

El grinned at him. “Thank you, Mike. And I promise I’ll be careful.”

Mike hugged her closer to his side, touching his forehead to hers. 

“I love you,” he whispered. 

“I love you too,” El replied.

Mike leaned in, and began kissing her. This kiss wasn’t like the others, always rushed and chaotic makeout sessions. No, this kiss was special, because in that moment, they both knew that no matter what happened, they would always be together. Mike and El. 

“Hey,” Nancy interrupted. 

The two looked up at her, not even embarrassed. 

“Jonathan says that Joyce and Hopper should be getting here soon, but we don’t know exactly when… Are you strong enough to close the gate now?” Nancy asked. 

“I think so,” El stood, offering Mike her hand, which he gladly took. 

Ten minutes later, everyone was standing in front of the massive gate. El stood in the center of the group, mentally preparing herself as Mike still held onto her hand. 

El looked around at everyone, the people she loved, her friends. Seeing all their encouraging faces made her feel safe and stronger. El took another deep breath before releasing her boyfriend’s hand and taking step forward towards the gate. 

“Wait,” Savannah said, stepping forward as well. “I can help.”

“You don’t have to… I can do it,” El told her. 

“Two of us are stronger than one. I want to help,” Savannah replied.

El gave her a small smile, and reached her hand out to her. Savannah grasped it, and the two girls faced the opening. 

Hand-in-hand, Savannah and El raised their other hands and began to concentrate. 

There was the familiar loud screeching noise as the gate felt the combined forces of the two telekinetic teens. The edges of the opening began to pulsate and inch inward. 

The others all watched with wide eyes as both girls began to levitate off the ground. 

In a final swirling tornado-like mist, the final gate closed in it’s entirety. 

Mike ran forward to catch El, and Steve did the same to catch Savannah. 

El held onto Mike as she regained her strength, while he whispered in her ear, “You did so good. I’m so proud of you.”

“Thanks,” Savannah said to Steve, after he had set her back on the ground. 

“No problem,” Steve answered, trying to ignore the knowing look that Robin was currently giving him.

Then, there was a loud sound as the door to the control center was opened, making everyone jump.

However, they didn’t have anything to worry about. Not anymore. 

The door had been opened by Joyce, who quickly ran forward, pulling all three of her kids into a hug. 

“Oh thank God!” she said. 

Jonathan smiled and said, “I told you we were fine.”

“When did that ever make me stop worrying?” Joyce replied. 

El grinned, but then turned to see someone else walking through the door. 

Hopper. 

El felt her eyes fill with tears as she looked at him for the first time in over a year. Wasting no more time, she quickly ran to him, throwing her arms around him and crying.

Hopper held her in his arms and whispered, “I missed you so much, kid.”

“I missed you, too,” El said, not letting go. 

Everyone else in the room had tears in their eyes too. Max held onto Lucas, and Nancy lightly punched her little brother on the arm to get his attention as she smiled at him. 

Relief. 

They were all feeling it. This was it. No more secret labs and conspiracies. No more hiding and keeping quiet. No more death and trauma. 

But one thing was for certain, every single one of them would go back and do it again if they had to. 

Without the pain and trauma, they wouldn’t have El. Some of them wouldn’t even have each other. 

So they’ll always be grateful for the past, and live for the present.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Whew, that was a lot. Thank you all, again, for reading! See you very soon with the epilogue!


	8. The Epilogue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Our last look at the lives of the heroes of Hawkins.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Omg, y'all. I'm feeling super nostalgic after writing this. I'm so grateful for the support this fic has gotten. I love writing these characters and my hope is that even if I entertain just one person with my writing, it was worth it. 
> 
> I hope you enjoy this last installment to my story. It was designed to make you smile. :)

…Six Months Later…

Nancy is walking along the streets of New York City, carrying her backpack and a fresh coffee, finally reaching her apartment after a long day of classes. 

“Hi, Marcie!” she greets one of her roommates as she walks through the front door. 

“Hey, Nancy! Jonathan called for you a little while ago, he wants you to call him back,” Marcie replied.

“Okay, thanks!” Nancy went back to her bedroom, sitting on the bed and dialing Jonathan’s number on the phone. 

It rang two times, and then her boyfriend picked up. “Hello?”

“Hey, it’s me,” she said, smiling to herself. 

“Oh hey, I missed you earlier,” he replied.

“Yeah, I had a study session at the library. I’ve got this big exam coming soon, so I wanted to be extra prepared,” Nancy told him. 

“You’ll do amazing, I’m sure of it. Oh, guess what? I got the internship I was telling you about,” Jonathan said excitedly.

“Oh my God, Jonathan, that’s amazing!” Nancy exclaimed. 

“Yeah, and I get to work with all these major New York photographers. It’s gonna be a great way to start my career,” he added. 

“I’m so proud of you, Jonathan,” Nancy said. 

“Thanks, Nance. Well, I should probably go, my roommate is trying to cook something and is about to set the whole apartment on fire. Call you later?” 

“Yeah, later. I love you,” Nancy replied. 

“I love you too,” Jonathan answered. 

Nancy set the phone back on her nightstand and began to pull out some of her textbooks. 

She never worried about the Upside Down or secret labs ever again. 

……..

“Pass the fries, dingus,” Robin said as Steve rolled his eyes, but still passed the fries over. 

Steve, Robin, and Savannah were eating lunch at the newly reopened Benny’s Burgers. Savannah had been living with Robin since she escaped from the lab in Ohio. 

“Okay, Savannah, which of these milkshakes do you think are the best?” Robin asked, gesturing to the three glasses in front of them.

“I like the chocolate the most, but vanilla’s pretty good too… Strawberry kinda sucks,” she answered, giggling when Steve raised his hands in triumph. 

“Yes! Chocolate wins! Robin owes me five dollars,” he yelled, reaching his hand towards her waiting for the money.

Robin rolled her eyes, and handed over a five dollar bill. “Well, I gotta go,” she said, standing.

“Got a hot date?” Steve asked, grinning evilly at her. 

“As a matter of fact, Harrington, I do… so I’ll see you later, Savannah,” Robin left the restaurant, leaving Steve and Savannah alone. 

Steve, not for the first time, began staring at Savannah. Her hair was starting to grow in more, blonde strands coming from her head in short waves. 

“Hey, Sav?” 

“Yeah?” 

“Um… I’ve been wanting to, um, tell you, um really I wanted to ask you if, uh…” Steve stuttered. 

“Spit it out, Steve, I know you want to tell me something…” Savannah smiled reassuringly.

“Oh yeah, right, mind-reading powers, right… I wanted to ask you… out. Like… on a date… I’ve kinda started to have feelings for you,” he managed to say.

“Steve—“ she began.

“But I totally get if you’re not ready for a relationship yet, because you basically just got out of that lab, and I’m not really that great and I don’t have a good job yet and—“

“Steve!” she yelled to get him to stop rambling. 

“Yeah?” he asked, afraid of what she would say.

“I have feelings for you too… and yes… I’ll go out with you,” Savannah smiled as she took another sip of the chocolate. 

Steve smiled back at her, then, relieved. “So does this… count?”

“As our first date?… I think it does,” Savannah said. 

Steve grinned. 

……..

Lucas rode his bike over to Max’s house to pick her up, finding her sitting out front, waiting for him. 

“Hey Stalker,” she said as she threw her leg over the back of the bike. 

“Hey Madmax,” Lucas replied. “Ready for a night of being a shameless nerd?”

“Absolutely, nerd game night is my favorite,” she replied. 

They began to head down the hill back towards Mike and Lucas’s neighborhood, for a whole evening dedicated to DnD. 

Just as they were nearing the final turn to Mike’s house, Lucas hit a large pothole, and sent them both flying through the air. 

They crashed alongside the road in a heap of limbs, as the bicycle lay a few feet from the pothole. 

“You okay?” Lucas asked. 

“Yeah, I’ve had much worse skating,” she answered, standing and reaching out to help Lucas up.

“Sorry,” Lucas mumbled. 

“Don’t worry about it, Stalker, I love you. Crashing your bike with me isn’t going to send me running for the hills,” Max said. 

“What did you just say?” Lucas froze. 

Max looked confused for a moment, but then her face began to turn red as she realized what she’d said.

“I—um,” she stuttered.

“I love you, too,” he told her confidently.

Max felt herself began to laugh in relief as Lucas leaned in to kiss her. 

“Come on,” he said, unable to stop the smile on his face. “We’re gonna be late.”

And they walked the rest of the way, hand-in-hand. 

……..

Hopper readjusted the new badge they had given him to restart work. He had had six months to re-cooperate from his time in Russia before finally returning to his position of Chief of Police. Life certainly had been different since returning to Hawkins. He and El had moved into a new house in town, using money that had been gifted to them in compensation from the government. 

Joyce, who was now sitting across from him at the table, drinking a fresh cup of coffee, had been visiting Hawkins regularly during the six months, not wanting to be away from Hopper and El for very long. 

She was looking through the paper for what felt like the seventeenth time since she’d gotten up that day.

“Anything?” Hopper asked. 

“Nothing affordable,” Joyce replied. “You forget how hard it is to buy a house in a town where everyone never moves…”

Hopper thought for a moment, then pulled the paper out of Joyce’s hands. 

“Move in here, with me and El,” he said. 

Joyce stared back at him, stunned. “I can’t do that, I’d have to bring Will, and Jonathan needs somewhere to sleep when he comes home from college.”

“There are plenty of rooms in this house for them, too, Joyce. Besides, I love your kids, and El loves having them as brothers,” he told her.

“No, I can’t I—“ 

“Joyce, I’m serious… bring the kids, bring all your stuff, and move in with me,” Hopper said. 

Joyce stared at him, before finally smiling, “Okay.” She took a sip of her coffee. 

“Okay,” Hopper grinned.

……..

Dustin walked into Mike’s basement, quickly, out of breath. “Sorry, I know I’m late!”

“It’s okay,” Mike said. “Max and Lucas aren’t here yet either.”

“What were you doing anyways?” Will asked from his seat at the DnD table, setting up.

“Oh I… I broke up with Suzie,” Dustin answered.

“I’m so sorry, Dustin,” El said, getting up to hug him. 

“Yeah, sorry man,” Mike added. 

“No it’s okay… the long distance thing just wasn’t gonna work anymore. I’m okay with it,” Dustin told them. 

“Besides,” he added. “I’d rather be hanging out with you guys than having to call her all the time.”

Will and Mike smiled. 

Then, Lucas and Max walked through the door, still holding hands.

“You’re late,” Mike said.

“We know… sorry,” Lucas answered. 

“Well, are we gonna be nerds for the night or what?” Max asked. 

“Aren’t we always nerds, though?” Will replied. 

“Not me and El, we’re the cool ones,” Max said, pulling her best friend in for a side hug. 

Mike rolled his eyes. 

They all gathered around the table, as Will began to speak in a dramatic and elaborate voice, describing the story. 

El sat in her chair, looking around at the scene before her. She was surrounded by the people she loved, her heart full, her hand clasped to Mike’s. This was everything she’d ever wanted. She caught Mike’s eye and smiled at him. He smiled back and kissed her on the top of her head, as she laid it on his shoulder. 

“A shadow grows on the wall behind you, swallowing darkness…” Will said. 

And even if it was just one night, the six heroines of Hawkins were kids again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading! I hope I met all your expectations for season 4, but that may be impossible. 
> 
> For anyone wondering where some major characters are, like Erica or Mrs. Wheeler, I really wanted to put them in this story! However, with the plotline, it would have been very difficult to get them involved. 
> 
> Now that you've finished this fic, feel free to check out some of my other fics!! Mostly mileven-centered, but there are a few Lumax ones thrown in as well. I'm currently working on a Mileven AU One-shot collection, where I am taking requests! So please go check that out! 
> 
> Well... before I go, THANK YOU again! (Also to anyone who cares, the official ship name for Steve and Savannah is Stavannah!)

**Author's Note:**

> Please let me know what you think in the comments! Also feel free to drop a few expectations you have for season 4, and maybe I'll be able to include them in this story! 
> 
> Also, if you have been waiting for the next one-shot in my alternate dimensions series, I promise it is coming soon! I got a ~little~ distracted by season 3.


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